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ESSAYS   AND   ADDRESSES 


FRANCE    AND    THE    UNITED    STATES 

ESSAYS  AND 
ADDRESSES 

By     JULES      CAMBON 


AMBASSADOR       OF       FRANCE 
TO       THE       UNITED       STATES 


D.   APPLETON   AND    COMPANY 
NEW   YORK      4      4     4      4      1903 


Copyright,  1903 
By  D.  Appleton  and  Cojipany 


CONTENTS 


I.  ESSAYS.  PAGE 

1.  Pierre  Loti's  Iceland  Fisherman  .       3 

2.  Diplomacy  and  the  Development* 

OF  International  Law        .  .     18 

II.  ADDRESSES. 

1.  A   True   View   of   France.      New 

York,  April  18,  1900         .         .     29 

2.  France    and    the    Formation    of 

THE   American   Ideal.      Boston, 
March   24,   1901         ...     37 

3.  The    Conception    of    a    Nation. 

Chicago,  June  17,  1901       .         .     56 

4.  France  as  the  Champion  of  Lib- 

erty.     New    Orleans,    January 
26,  1902 65 

5.  France   and   American   Independ- 

ence.     Washington,    April    19, 
1902 74 

6.  Unveiling    of     the    Rochambeau 

Statue,   Washington,    May    24, 
1902 80 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

7.  The  People  of  Feance.     Presen-  ^^^"^ 

TATiON  OF  Me.  A.  Ceoizet,  at  the 
Univeesity  of  Haevaed,  Cam- 
BEn)GE,  Mass.,  May  31,  1902         .     84 

8.  Faeewell    Banquet,    New    Yoek, 

NOVEMBEE  10,  1902      ...     88 


VI 


ESSAYS  AND   ADDRESSES 


PIERRE   LOTI'S   ICELAND 
FISHERMAN* 

The  first  appearance  of  Pierre  Loti's  works, 
twenty  years  ago,  caused  a  sensation  throughout 
those  circles  wherein  the  creations  of  intellect  and 
imagination  are  felt,  studied,  and  discussed.  This 
author  was  one  who,  with  a  power  which  no  one 
had  wielded  before  him,  carried  off  his  readers  into 
exotic  lands,  and  whose  art,  in  appearance  most 
simple,  proved  a  genuine  enchantment  for  the  im- 
agination. It  was  the  time  when  M.  Zola  and  his 
school  stood  at  the  head  of  the  literary  movement. 
There  breathed  forth  from  Loti's  writings  an  all- 
penetrating  fragrance  of  poesy,  which  liberated 
French  literary  ideals  from  the  heavy  and  oppressive 
yoke  of  the  Naturalistic  school.  Truth  now  soared 
on  unhampered  pinions,  and  the  reading  world  was 
completely  won  by  the  unsurpassed  intensity  and 
faithful  accuracy  with  which  he  depicted  the  allur- 
ing charms  of  far-off  scenes,  and  painted  the  naive 

♦  This  Essay  is  the  Introduction  to  Pierre  Loti's  "  Iceland 
Fisherman,"  pubUshed  in  "  A  Century  of  French  Romance." 
D.  Appleton  &  Co. 


ESSAYS   AND   ADDRESSES 

soul  of  the  races  that  seem  to  endure  in  the  isles  of 
the  Pacific  as  surviving  representatives  of  the  world's 
infancy. 

It  was  then  learned  that  this  independent  writer 
was  named  in  real  life  Pierre  Viaud,  and  that  he 
was  a  naval  officer.  This  very  fact,  that  he  was  not 
a  writer  by  profession,  added  indeed  to  his  success. 
He  had  actually  seen  that  which  he  was  describing, 
he  had  lived  that  which  he  was  relating.  What  in 
any  other  man  would  have  seemed  but  research  and 
oddity,  remained  natural  in  the  case  of  a  sailor  who 
returned  each  year  with  a  manuscript  in  his  hand. 
Africa,  Asia,  the  isles  of  the  Pacific,  were  the  usual 
scenes  of  his  dramas.  Finally,  from  France  itself, 
and  from  the  oldest  provinces  of  France,  he  drew 
subject-matter  for  two  of  his  novels,  An  Iceland 
Fisherman  and  Ramuntcho,  This  proved  a  sur- 
prise. Our  Breton  sailors  and  our  Basque  moun- 
taineers were  not  less  foreign  to  the  Parisian  draw- 
ing-room than  was  Aziyade  or  the  little  Rarahu. 
One  thought  to  have  a  knowledge  of  Brittany,  or 
of  the  Pyrenees,  because  one  had  visited  Dinard  or 
Biarritz;  while  in  reality  neither  Tahiti  nor  the 
Isle  of  Paques  could  have  remained  more  completely 
unknown  to  us. 

The  developments  of  human  industry  have 
brought  the  extremities  of  the  world  nearer  to- 
gether ;  but  the  soul  of  each  race  continues  to  cloak 
itself  in  its  own  individuality  and  to  remain  a  mys- 

4 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

tery  to  the  rest  of  the  world.  One  trait  alone  is 
common  to  all :  the  infinite  sadness  of  human  destiny. 
This  it  was  that  Loti  impressed  so  vividly  on  the 
reading  world. 

His  success  was  great.  Though  a  young  man 
as  yet,  Loti  saw  his  work  crowned  with  what  in 
France  may  be  considered  the  supreme  sanction: 
he  was  awarded  a  membership  in  the  French  Acad- 
emy. His  name  became  coupled  with  those  of  Ber- 
nardin  de  St.  Pierre  and  of  Chateaubriand.  With 
the  sole  exception  of  the  author  of  Paul  and  Virgima 
and  of  the  writer  of  Atala,  he  seemed  to  be  one 
without  a  predecessor  and  without  a  master.  It 
may  be  well  here  to  inquire  how  much  reason  there 
is  for  this  assertion,  and  what  novel  features  are 
presented  in  his  work. 

It  has  become  a  trite  saying  that  French  genius 
lacks  the  sense  of  Nature,  that  the  French  tongue 
is  colourless,  and  therefore  wants  the  most  striking 
feature  of  poetry.  If  we  abandoned  for  one  mo- 
ment the  domain  of  letters  and  took  a  comprehensive 
view  of  the  field  of  art,  we  might  be  permitted  to  ex- 
press astonishment  at  the  passing  of  so  summary 
a  judgment  on  the  genius  of  a  nation  which  has,  in 
the  real  sense  of  the  term,  produced  two  such  paint- 
ers of  Nature  as  Claude  Lorrain  and  Corot.  But 
even  in  the  realm  of  letters,  it  is  easily  seen  that 
this  mode  of  thinking  is  due  largely  to  insufficient 

5 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

knowledge  of  the  language's  resources,  and  to  such 
a  study  of  French  literature  as  does  not  extend 
beyond  the  seventeenth  century.  Without  going 
back  to  the  Duke  of  Orleans  and  to  Villon,  one  need 
only  read  a  few  of  the  poets  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury to  be  struck  by  the  prominence  given  to  Nature 
in  their  writings.  Nothing  is  more  delightful  than 
Ronsard's  word-paintings  of  his  sweet  country  of 
Vendome.  Until  the  day  of  Malherbe,  the  didactic 
Regnier  and  the  Calvinistic  Marot  are  the  only  two 
who  could  be  said  to  give  colour  to  the  preconceived 
and  prevalent  notion  as  to  the  dryness  of  French 
poetry.  And  even  after  Malherbe,  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  we  find  that  La  Fontaine,  the  most 
truly  French  of  French  writers,  was  a  passionate 
lover  of  Nature.  He  who  can  see  nothing  in  the 
latter's  fables  beyond  the  httle  dramas  which  they 
unfold  and  the  ordinary  moral  which  the  poet  draws 
therefrom,  must  confess  that  he  fails  to  understand 
him.  His  landscapes  possess  precision,  accuracy, 
and  life,  while  such  is  the  fragrance  of  his  speech 
that  it  seems  laden  with  the  fresh  perfume  of  the 
fields  and  furrows. 

Racine  himself,  the  most  penetrating  and  the 
most  psychological  of  poets,  is  too  well  versed 
in  the  human  soul  not  to  have  felt  its  intimate 
union  with  Nature.  His  magnificent  verse  in 
Phedre, 

*'  Ah  !  que  ne  suis-je  assise  a  rombre  des  forets  !  " 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

is  but  the  cry  of  despair,  the  appeal,  filled  with 
anguish,  of  a  heart  that  is  troubled  and  which  oft 
has  sought  peace  and  alleviation  amid  the  cold  indif- 
ference of  inanimate  things.  The  small  place  given 
to  Nature  in  the  French  literature  of  the  seventeenth 
century  is  not  to  be  ascribed  to  the  language  nor 
explained  by  a  lack  of  sensibility  on  the  part  of  the 
race.  The  true  cause  is  to  be  found  in  the  spirit  of 
that  period ;  for  investigation  will  disclose  that  the 
very  same  condition  then  characterized  the  litera- 
tures of  England,  of  Spain,  and  of  Italy. 

We  must  bear  in  mind  that,  owing  to  an  almost 
unique  combination  of  circumstances,  there  never 
has  been  a  period  when  man  was  more  convinced  of 
the  nobility  and,  I  dare  say  it,  of  the  sovereignty  of 
man,  or  was  more  inclined  to  look  upon  the  latter 
as  a  being  independent  of  the  external  world.  He 
did  not  suspect  the  intimately  close  bonds  which 
unite  the  creature  to  the  medium  in  which  it  lives. 
A  man  of  the  world  in  the  seventeenth  century  was 
utterly  without  a  notion  of  those  truths  which  in 
their  ensemble  constitute  the  natural  sciences.  He 
entered  the  threshold  of  life  possessed  of  a  deep 
classical  instruction,  and  all-imbued  with  stoical 
ideas  of  virtue.  At  the  same  time,  he  had  received 
the  mould  of  a  strong  but  narrow  Christian  educa- 
tion, in  which  nothing  figured  save  his  relations  with 
God.  This  twofold  training  elevated  his  soul  and 
fortified  his  will,  but  wrenched  him  violently  from 

7 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

all  communion  with  Nature.  This  is  the  standpoint 
from  which  we  must  view  the  heroes  of  Corneille, 
if  we  would  understand  those  extraordinary  souls 
which,  always  at  the  highest  degree  of  tension,  deny 
themselves,  as  a  weakness,  everything  that  resembles 
tenderness  or  pity.  Again,  thus  and  thus  alone 
can  we  explain  how  Descartes,  and  with  him  all  the 
philosophers  of  his  century,  ran  counter  to  all  com- 
mon sense,  and  refused  to  recognize  that  animals 
might  possess  a  soul-like  principle  which,  however 
remotely,  might  link  them  to  the  human  being. 

When,  in  thfe  eighteenth  century,  minds  became 
emancipated  from  the  narrow  restrictions  of  relig- 
ious discipline,  and  when  method  was  introduced 
into  the  study  of  scientific  problems.  Nature  took 
her  revenge  as  well  in  literature  as  in  all  other  fields 
of  human  thought.  Rousseau  it  was  who  inaugu- 
rated the  movement  in  France,  and  the  whole  of 
Europe  followed  in  the  wake  of  France.  It  may 
even  be  declared  that  the  reaction  against  the  sev- 
enteenth century  was  in  many  respects  excessive, 
for  the  eighteenth  century  gave  itself  up  to  a  spe- 
cies of  sentimental  debauch.  It  is  none  the  less  a 
fact  that  the  author  of  La  Nouvelle  Heldise  was  the 
first  to  blend  the  moral  life  of  man  with  his  exterior 
surroundings.  He  felt  the  savage  beauty  and 
grandeur  of  the  mountains  of  Switzerland,  the 
grace  of  the  Savoy  horizons,  and  the  more  familiar 
elegance  of  the  Parisian  suburbs.    We  may  say  that 

8 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

he  opened  the  eye  of  humanity  to  the  spectacle  which 
the  world  offered  it.  In  Germany,  Lessing,  Goethe, 
Hegel,  Schelling  have  proclaimed  him  their  mas- 
ter; while  even  in  England,  Byron,  and  George 
Eliot  herself,  have  recognised  all  that  they  owed 
to  him. 

The  first  of  Rousseau's  disciples  in  France  was 
Bernardin  de  St.  Pierre,  whose  name  has  frequently 
been  recalled  in  connection  with  Loti.  Indeed,  the 
charming  masterpiece  of  Paul  et  Virgmie  was  the 
first  example  of  exoticism  in  literature;  and  here- 
by it  excited  the  curiosity  of  our  fathers  at  the 
same  time  that  it  dazzled  them  by  the  wealth  and 
brilliancy  of  its  descriptions. 

Then  came  Chateaubriand;  but  Nature  with 
him  was  not  a  mere  background.  He  sought  from 
it  an  accompaniment,  in  the  musical  vsense  of  the 
term,  to  the  movements  of  his  soul ;  and  being  some- 
what prone  to  melancholy,  his  taste  seems  to  have 
favoured  sombre  landscapes,  stormy  and  tragical. 
The  entire  romantic  school  was  born  from  him,  Vic- 
tor Hugo  and  George  Sand,  Theophile  Gautier  who 
draws  from  the  French  tongue  resources  unequalled 
in  wealth  and  in  colour,  and  even  M.  Zola  himself, 
whose  naturalism,  after  all,  is  but  the  last  form 
and,  as  it  were,  the  end  of  romanticism,  since  it  would 
be  difficult  to  discover  in  him  any  characteristic 
that  did  not  exist,  as  a  germ  at  least,  in  Balzac. 

I  have  just  said  that  Chateaubriand  sought  in 
9 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

Nature  an  accompaniment  to  the  movements  of  his 
soul:  this  was  the  case  with  all  the  romanticists. 
We  do  not  find  Rene,  Manfred,  Indiana,  living  in 
the  midst  of  a  tranquil  and  monotonous  Nature. 
The  storms  of  heaven  must  respond  to  the  storms  of 
their  soul;  and  it  is  a  fact  that  all  these  great 
writers,  Byron  as  well  as  Victor  Hugo,  have  not  so 
much  contemplated  and  seen  Nature  as  they  have 
interpreted  it  through  the  medium  of  their  own 
passions ;  and  it  is  in  this  sense  that  the  keen  Amiel 
could  justly  remark  that  a  landscape  is  a  condition 
or  a  state  of  the  soul. 

M.  Loti  does  not  merely  interpret  a  landscape ; 
though  perhaps,  to  begin  with,  he  is  unconscious  of 
doing  more.  With  him,  the  human  being  is  a  part 
of  Nature,  one  of  its  very  expressions,  in  the  same 
manner  as  animals  and  plants,  as  mountain  forms 
and  sky  tints.  His  characters  are  what  they  are 
only  because  they  issue  forth  from  the  medium  in 
which  they  live.  They  are  truly  creatures,  and  not 
gods  inhabiting  the  earth.  Hence  their  profound 
and  striking  reality. 

Hence  also  one  of  the  peculiar  characteristics 
of  Loti's  workers.  He  loves  to  paint  simple  souls, 
hearts  close  to  Nature,  whose  simple  passions  are 
singularly  similar  to  those  of  animals.  He  is  happy 
in  the  isles  of  the  Pacific  or  on  the  borders  of 
Senegal;  and  when  he  shifts  his  scenes  into  old 
10 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

Europe  it  is  never  with  men  and  women  of  the 
world  that  he  entertains  us. 

What  we  call  a  man  of  the  world  is  the  same 
everywhere;  he  is  moulded  by  the  society  of  men, 
but  Nature  and  the  universe  have  no  place  in  his 
life  and  thought.  M.  Paul  Bourget's  heroes  might 
live  without  distinction  in  Newport  or  in  Monte 
Carlo ;  they  take  root  nowhere,  but  live  in  the  large 
cities,  in  winter  resorts  and  in  drawing-rooms  as 
transient  visitors  in  temporary  abiding-places. 

Loti  seeks  his  heroes  and  his  heroines  among 
those  antique  races  of  Europe  which  have  survived 
all  conquests,  and  which  have  preserved,  with  their 
native  tongue,  the  individuality  of  their  charac- 
ter. He  met  Ramuntcho  in  the  Basque  country, 
but  dearer  than  all  to  him  is  Brittany:  here  it 
was  that  he  met  his  Iceland  fishermen. 

The  Breton  soul  bears  an  imprint  of  Armori- 
ca's  primitive  soil:  it  is  melancholy  and  noble. 
There  is  an  undefinable  charm  about  those  arid 
lands  and  those  sod-flanked  hills  of  granite,  whose 
sole  horizon  is  the  far-stretching  sea.  Europe  ends 
here,  and  beyond  remains  only  the  broad  expanse 
of  the  ocean.  The  poor  people  who  dwell  here  are 
silent  and  tenacious:  their  heart  is  full  of  tender- 
ness and  of  dreams.  Yann,  the  Iceland  fisherman, 
and  his  sweetheart.  Gaud  of  Paimpol,  can  only  live 
here,  in  the  small  houses  of  Brittany,  where  peo- 
ple huddle  together  in  a  stand  against  the  storms 
11 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

which  come  howling  from  the  depths  of  the  At- 
lantic. 

Loti's  novels  are  never  complicated  with  a  mass 
of  incidents.  The  characters  are  of  humble  station 
and  their  life  is  as  simple  as  their  soul.  Aziyade, 
The  Romance  of  a  Spahi,  An  Iceland  Fisherman, 
Ramuntcho,  all  present  the  story  of  a  love  and  a 
separation.  A  departure,  or  death  itself,  inter- 
venes to  put  an  end  to  the  romance.  But  the 
cause  matters  little;  the  separation  is  the  same; 
the  hearts  are  broken;  Nature  survives;  it  covers 
over  and  absorbs  the  miserable  ruins  which  we  leave 
behind  us.  No  one  better  than  Loti  has  ever 
brought  out  the  frailty  of  all  things  pertaining  to 
us,  for  no  one  better  than  he  has  made  us  realize 
the  persistency  of  life  and  the  indifference  of 
Nature. 

This  circumstance  imparts  to  the  reading  of  M. 
Loti's  works  a  character  of  peculiar  sadness.  The 
trend  of  his  novels  is  not  one  that  incites  curiosity ; 
his  heroes  are  simple,  and  the  atmosphere  in  which 
they  live  is  foreign  to  us.  What  saddens  us  is  not 
their  history,  but  the  undefinable  impression  that 
our  pleasures  are  nothing  and  that  we  are  but  an 
accident.  This  is  a  thought  common  to  the  degree 
of  triteness  among  moralists  and  theologians;  but 
as  they  present  it  it  fails  to  move  us;  it  troubles 
us  as  presented  by  M.  Loti,  because  he  has  known 
how  to  give  it  all  the  force  of  a  sensation. 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

How  has  he  accomplished  this? 

He  writes  with  extreme  simplicity,  and  is  not 
averse  to  the  use  of  vague  and  indefinite  expres- 
sions. And  yet  the  wealth  and  precision  of  Gau- 
tier  and  Hugo's  language  fail  to  endow  their  land- 
scapes with  the  striking  charm  and  intense  life 
which  are  to  be  found  in  those  of  Loti.  I  can 
ascribe  for  this  no  other  reason  than  that  which 
I  have  suggested  above:  the  landscape,  in  Hugo 
and  in  Gautier's  scenes,  is  a  background  and  noth- 
ing more;  while  Loti  makes  it  the  predominating 
figure  of  his  drama.  Our  sensibilities  are  neces- 
sarily aroused  before  this  apparition  of  Nature, 
blind,  inaccessible,  and  all-powerful  as  the  Fates 
of  old. 

It  may  prove  interesting  to  inquire  how  Loti 
contrived  to  sound  such  a  new  note  in  art. 

He  boasted,  on  the  day  of  his  reception  into 
the  French  Academy,  that  he  had  never  read. 
Many  protested,  some  smiled,  and  a  large  number 
of  persons  refused  to  believe  the  assertion.  Yet 
the  statement  was  actually  quite  credible,  for  the 
foundation  and  basis  of  M.  Loti  rest  on  a  naive 
simplicity  which  makes  him  very  sensitive  to  the 
things  of  the  outside  world,  and  gives  him  a  per- 
fect comprehension  of  simple  souls.  He  is  not  a 
reader,  for  he  is  not  imbued  with  book  notions  of 
things ;  his  notions  of  them  are  direct,  and  every- 
13 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

thing  with  him  is  not  memory,  but  reflected  sen- 
sation. 

On  the  other  hand,  that  sailor-life  which  has 
enabled  him  to  see  the  world,  must  have  confirmed 
in  him  this  mental  attitude.  The  deck  officer  who 
watches  the  vessel's  course  may  do  nothing  which 
could  distract  his  attention;  but  while  ever  ready 
to  act  and  always  unoccupied,  he  thinks,  he  dreams, 
he  listens  to  the  voices  of  the  sea;  and  everything 
about  him  is  of  interest  to  him,  the  shape  of  the 
clouds,  the  aspect  of  skies  and  waters;  he  knows 
that  a  mere  board's  thickness  is  all  that  separates 
him  and  defends  him  from  death.  Such  is  the 
habitual  state  of  mind  which  M.  Loti  has  brought 
to  the  colouring  of  his  books. 

He  has  related  to  us  how,  when  still  a  little 
child,  he  first  beheld  the  sea.  He  had  escaped  from 
the  parental  home,  allured  by  the  brisk  and  pun- 
gent air  and  by  the  "  peculiar  noise,  at  once  feeble 
and  great,"  which  could  be  heard  beyond  little  hills 
of  sand  to  which  led  a  certain  path.  He  recog- 
nised the  sea :  "  before  me  something  appeared, 
something  sombre  and  noisy,  which  had  loomed  up 
from  all  sides  at  once,  and  which  seemed  to  have 
no  end;  a  moving  expanse  which  struck  me  with 
mortal  vertigo;  .  .  .  above  was  stretched  out  full 
a  sky  all  of  one  piece,  of  a  dark  gray  colour  like 
a  heavy  mantle ;  very,  very  far  away,  in  unmeasur- 
able  depths  of  horizon,  could  be  seen  a  break,  an 
14 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

opening  between  sea  and  sky,  a  long  empty  crack, 
of  a  light  pale  yellow."  He  felt  a  sadness  unspeak- 
able, a  sense  of  desolate  solitude,  of  abandonment, 
of  exile.  He  ran  back  in  haste  to  unburden  his 
soul  upon  his  mother's  bosom,  and,  as  he  says,  "  to 
seek  consolation  with  her  from  a  thousand  antici- 
pated, indescribable  pangs,  which  had  wrung  my 
heart  at  the  sight  of  that  vast  green,  deep  ex- 
panse." 

A  poet  of  the  sea  had  been  born,  and  his  genius 
still  bears  a  trace  of  the  shudder  of  fear  experi- 
enced that  evening  by  Pierre  Loti  the  little  child. 

Loti  was  born  not  far  from  the  ocean,  in  Sain- 
tonge,  of  an  old  Huguenot  family  which  had  num- 
bered many  sailors  among  its  members.  While  yet 
a  mere  child  he  thumbed  the  old  Bible  which  for- 
merly, in  the  days  of  persecution,  had  been  read 
only  with  cautious  secrecy ;  and  he  perused  the  ves- 
sel's ancient  records  wherein  mariners  long  since 
gone  had  noted,  almost  a  century  before,  that  "  the 
weather  was  good,"  that  "  the  wind  was  favour- 
able," and  that  "  doradoes  or  gilt-heads  were  pass- 
ing near  the  ship." 

He  was  passionately  fond  of  music.  He  had 
few  comrades,  and  his  imagination  was  of  the  ex- 
alted kind.  His  first  ambition  was  to  be  a  minister, 
then  a  missionary ;  and  finally  he  decided  to  become 
a  sailor.  He  wanted  to  see  the  world,  he  had  the 
curiosity  of  things;  he  was  inclined  to  search  for 

15 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

the  strange  and  the  unknown;  he  must  seek  that 
sensation,  delightful  and  fascinating  to  complex 
souls,  of  betaking  himself  off,  of  withdrawing  from 
his  own  world,  of  breaking  with  his  own  mode  of 
life,  and  of  creating  for  himself  voluntary  regrets. 

He  felt  in  the  presence- of  Nature  a  species 
of  disquietude,  and  experienced  therefrom  sensa- 
tions almost  colourable :  his  head,  he  himself  states, 
"  might  be  compared  to  a  camera,  filled  with  sensi- 
tive plates."  This  power  of  vision  only  permitted 
him  to  apprehend  the  appearance  of  things,  not 
their  reality;  he  was  conscious  of  the  nothingness 
of  nothing,  of  the  dust  of  dust.  The  remnants 
of  his  religious  education  intensified  still  more  this 
distaste  for  the  external  world. 

He  was  wont  to  spend  his  summer  vacation  in 
the  south  of  France,  and  he  preserved  its  warm, 
sunny  impressions.  It  was  only  later  that  he  be- 
came acquainted  with  Brittany.  She  inspired  him 
at  first  with  a  feeling  of  oppression  and  of  sadness, 
and  it  was  long  before  he  learned  to  love  her. 

Thus  was  framed  and  developed,  far  from  the 
literary  circles  and  from  Parisian  coteries,  one  of 
the  most  original  writers  that  had  appeared  for  a 
long  time.  He  noted  his  impressions  while  touring 
the  world ;  one  fine  morning  he  published  them,  and 
from  the  very  first  the  reading  public  was  won. 
He  related  his  adventures  and  his  own  romance. 
The  question  could  then  be  raised  whether  his  skill 
16 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

and  art  would  prove  as  consummate  if  he  should 
deviate  from  his  own  personality  to  write  what 
might  be  termed  impersonal  poems;  and  it  is  pre- 
cisely in  this  last  direction  that  he  subsequently 
produced  what  are  now  considered  his  masterpieces. 
A  strange  writer  assuredly  is  this,  at  once  log- 
ical and  illusive,  who  makes  us  feel  at  the  same 
time  the  sensation  of  things  and  that  of  their  noth- 
ingness. Amid  so  many  works  wherein  the  luxuries 
of  the  Orient,  the  quasi  animal  life  of  the  Pacific, 
the  burning  passions  of  Africa,  are  painted  with 
a  vigour  of  imagination  never  witnessed  before  his 
advent,  An  Iceland  Fisherman  shines  forth  with  in- 
comparable brilliancy;  something  of  the  pure  soul 
of  Brittany  is  to  be  found  in  these  melancholy 
pages,  which,  so  long  as  the  French  tongue  en- 
dures, must  evoke  the  admiration  of  artists,  and 
must  arouse  the  pity  and  stir  the  emotions  of  men. 


17 


THE  RELATIONS  OF  DIPLOMACY 
TO  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF 
INTERNATIONAL  LAW,  PUB- 
LIC  AND   PRIVATE 

Gentlemen  : 

There  are  few  callings  in  this  world  which  are 
more  misunderstood  by  the  public  than  that  of  a 
diplomat.  It  is  readily  assumed  by  a  number  of 
persons  that  ambassadors  are  but  the  official  repre- 
sentatives of  sovereigns  or  of  republics,  appointed 
to  serve  on  all  occasions  of  international  courtesy. 
Others,  on  the  contrary,  seem  to  fancy  that  the 
affairs  of  this  world  are  set  in  motion  by  mysterious 
springs  of  action,  and  that  the  nations  are  pitted 
against  one  another  in  a  sort  of  never-ending  con- 
spiracy; that,  consequently,  diplomacy,  in  its  es- 
sence, is  but  intrigue,  pure  and  simple.  It  would 
be  difficult  to  conceive  a  grosser  error.  The  Prince 
of  Talleyrand,  a  man  who  was  perhaps  the  most 
illustrious  diplomat  of  the  last  century,  and  who 
more  than  any  other  combated  these  mistaken  no- 
tions, said,  in  the  last  address  which  he  delivered 
before  the  Academy  of  Moral  and  Political  Sci- 
ences in  Paris,  on  March  3,  1838 :  "  Diplomacy  is 
18 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

not  a  science  based  on  duplicity  and  cunning.  If 
good  faith  is  anywhere  a  requisite,  it  is  particularly 
so  in  political  transactions,  for  on  it  the  latter  de- 
pend for  their  solidity  and  their  lasting  effective- 
ness. Reserve  has  been  confounded  with  cunning. 
Good  faith  never  authorizes  cunning,  whilst  it  ad- 
mits of  reserve;  and  the  peculiar  characteristic  of 
reserve  is  that  it  increases  confidence." 

The  Prince  of  Talleyrand  knew  better  than  any 
one  else  what  is  calculated  to  ensure  the  prestige  and 
authority  of  a  nation's  representatives,  and  the  part 
played  by  him  in  the  history  of  the  world  must  in- 
spire confidence  in  the  principles  of  conduct  laid 
down  by  him  for  the  guidance  of  diplomats.  The 
role  of  diplomacy,  therefore,  is  not  that  usually 
ascribed  to  it  by  the  uninitiated ;  and  I  shall  attempt 
to  define  it  for  you  to-day. 

It  is  a  fact  that,  in  antiquity,  diplomacy  was,  so 
to  speak,  unknown.  Mankind,  at  that  stage  of  its 
own  development,  recognized  but  two  conditions: 
the  one,  of  the  conqueror;  the  other,  of  the  van- 
quished; they  had  no  conception  of  rights  entailed 
in  the  relations  of  a  weak  State  with  a  strong  one. 
When  Rome  dominated  the  universe,  the  only  beings 
left  across  the  borders  of  its  vast  empire  were  more 
or  less  barbarous  tribes,  with  whom  she  was  ever  at 
war,  or  whose  chiefs  were  her  simple  vassals. 

It  was  in  the  Middle  Ages,  at  that  troubled 
period  when  countless  races  of  diverse  origins  came 

19 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

into  contact  and  conflict  with  each  other  in  Western 
Europe,  that  an  influence  born  of  a  common  faith, 
the  influence  of  Christianity,  awoke  these  tribes  to 
the  consciousness  that  there  existed  between  them 
some  bond  of  society.  Then  was  formed  what  be- 
came known  as  Christendom;  and  the  Crusaders 
themselves  were  but  the  expression  of  a  general  sen- 
timent which  animated  all  Christian  nations. 

Little  by  little,  order  emerged  from  chaos.  All 
the  scattered  elements  crystallized,  so  to  speak,  into 
a  certain  number  of  nations  which  assumed  the  lead- 
ership of  humanity.  These  nations  themselves  soon 
vied  with  one  another  for  supremacy ;  the  spirit  of 
rivalry  which  gained  ground  in  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, and  the  conflicts  which  arose  in  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries,  between  the  House  of 
France  and  the  House  of  Austria,  showed  that  it 
was  necessary,  for  the  peace  of  the  world,  to  estab- 
lish equilibrium  between  the  Powers  of  Europe. 
This  it  was  that  prompted  the  great  Pope  Sixtus  V 
to  favor  the  setting  up  in  France  of  Henry  IV 
in  opposition  to  the  king  of  Spain,  Philip  II. 

Thus  was  born  among  the  nations  a  sort  of  tacit 
society;  and  just  as  there  exist  laws  in  the  heart 
of  each  State  to  govern  the  relations  of  citizens 
among  themselves,  so  in  this  society  of  nations  were 
evolved  rules  which  soon  constituted  International 
Law. 

This  was  the  time  when  appeared  the  first  diplo- 
ic 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

mats,  those  great  princes  and  those  great  ministers 
which  have  founded  modern  Europe.  Diplomacy, 
therefore,  took  birth  concurrently  with  international 
law.  Its  fundamental  duty  is  to  enforce  respect 
for  the  latter's  provisions  and  to  foster  their  con- 
tinuous development,  thereby  rendering  essential 
service  to  the  advancement  of  civilization. 

It  is  true  that  the  rules  of  international  law  seem 
to  be  devoid  of  sanction.  Frederick  the  Great,  in 
his  guiding  instructions  given  to  the  Academy  of 
Nobles  in  Prussia,  wrote :  "  The  teacher  shall  warn 
the  young  that,  as  international  law  is  lacking  in 
coercive  power  to  enforce  the  observation  of  its 
tenets,  it  is  but  an  idle  phantom  invoked  and  pa- 
raded by  rulers  in  their  decrees  and  manifestoes, 
even  whilst  it  is  being  violated  by  them." 

The  great  Frederick  affected  scepticism  in  mat- 
ters of  international  law.  But  the  conclusion  is 
unwarranted,  that  because  a  law  may  be  broken, 
therefore,  it  does  not  exist.  We  find  a  sanction 
to  international  law  in  that  public  sentiment  which 
henceforth  impels  each  combatant,  at  the  opening 
of  every  war,  to  seek  to  throw  on  his  adversary  the 
responsibility  of  attack.  There  are  even  more  prac- 
tical sanctions  than  those  which  rest  on  public  opin- 
ion. We  have  seen  neutral  powers  unite,  in  case 
of  conflict  between  two  nations,  to  protect  the  rights 
of  their  own  citizens ;  while  in  the  Orient  the  civil- 
ized Powers  have  frequently  combined  to  enforce 

21 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

respect  from  still  barbarous  nations  for  the  rights 
of  humanity. 

Hence  the  function  of  diplomacy  is  to  maintain 
those  international  principles  which  constitute  the 
guarantee  of  these  rights,  and  thereby  to  strength- 
en the  social  bond  which  links  together  the  nations 
of  the  world. 

This  has  been  its  persistent  endeavor.  I  shall 
not  enter  here  upon  a  detailed  list  of  all  the  Con- 
gresses, each  one  of  which  has  contributed  its  piece 
of  masonry  to  the  present  edifice  of  international 
law;  but  I  may  cite  more  or  less  recent  instances 
of  this  fact; 

In  1855,  after  the  war  in  the  Orient,  representa- 
tives of  all  the  European  Powers  were  brought  to- 
gether by  a  Congress  held  in  Paris.  Little  remains 
to-day  of  those  events  which  brought  about  this 
Congress,  of  the  encounters,  of  the  sacrifices  of 
human  life  and  of  money  caused  by  a  protracted 
war;  but  this  Congress  has  left  its  trace  on  inter- 
national law;  it  abolished  letters  of  mark  and  re- 
prisal, a  remnant  of  those  days  when  war  was  as 
much  a  matter  of  private  as  of  State  concern. 

And  now,  quite  recently,  we  have  heard  the  Con- 
ference called  together  at  The  Hague  by  the  gen- 
erous initiative  of  H.  I.  M.  the  Czar  of  Russia, 
proclaim  a  few  new  principles  the  full  portent 
of  which,  perhaps,  is  not  altogether  understood 
at  this  date,  but  which,  little  by  little,  are  des- 
22 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

tined  to  become  engraved  on  the  conscience  of 
humanity. 

It  has  extended  to  naval  warfare  the  protection 
thrown  about  the  wounded  by  the  convention  of 
Geneva;  it  has  specified,  and,  therefore,  restricted, 
tlie  rights  of  beUigerents  in  land  operations.  It  has 
decided  that  the  choice  of  means  of  inflicting  harm 
on  an  enemy  is  not  unlimited,  and  it  has  named  a 
few  which  it  stamped  with  condemnation.  It  has 
set  a  safeguard  around  the  population's  interests 
within  a  territory  occupied  by  the  enemy.  It  has 
established  a  permanent  arbitration  tribunal,  thus 
aff'ording  a  regular  and  peaceful  means  of  settle- 
ment of  all  conflicts  threatening  to  arise  between  the 
nations.  I  take  pleasure  here  in  rendering  homage 
to  my  colleague  and  friend,  Lord  Pauncefote,  who 
was  one  of  the  promoters  of  arbitration  between 
States  and  who  took  so  active  a  part  in  this  Con- 
ference at  The  Hague. 

Finally,  The  Hague  Conference  has  decided 
that  an  off'er  of  mediation  on  the  part  of  one  or 
of  several  foreign  Powers,  in  a  case  of  impending 
war  between  two  nations,  should  never  be  consid- 
ered as  an  unfriendly  act.  In  moments  of  crisis, 
with  the  war  clouds  gathering,  patriotism  becomes 
sensitive;  and  we  have  seen  nations  looking  with 
distrust,  not  to  say  taking  ofl^ense,  at  friendly  inter- 
ventions which  sought  to  avert  the  rupture.  The 
duty  of  diplomacy,  which  personifies  the  spirit  of 
23 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

society  among  nations,  was  on  the  contrary — and 
we  must  be  gratified  that  it  was  so  proclaimed  by 
The  Hague  Conference — to  leave  nothing  undone 
to  prevent  war  before  it  broke  out  between  friendly 
Powers,  just  as  it  is  likewise  its  duty  to  do  every- 
thing, once  war  has  been  declared,  to  shorten  its 
duration  and  to  attenuate  its  horrors. 

Furthermore,  war  and  peace  are  not  the  only 
questions  arising  between  States.  As  civilization 
progresses,  the  ties  which  bind  nations,  as  well  as 
men,  together,  become  more  complex,  and  thus  it  is 
that  for  half  a  century,  diplomacy  has  been  occu- 
pied in  concluding  a  number  of  treaties,  which  con- 
stitute temporary  laws,  between  all  or  a  number  of 
civilized  States. 

I  shall  cite  the  Postal  and  Telegraphic  Conven- 
tions, those  which  created  a  monetary  union  between 
various  Powers  and  those  which  aim  at  the  protect- 
ing of  industrial,  commercial,  literary  or  artistic 
rights. 

And  here  we  enter  upon  a  new  order  of  questions, 
I  mean  those  which  concern  private  interests  and 
the  relations  between  nations  as  to  the  application 
of  their  private  laws  to  foreigners. 

It  was  a  dream,  to  suppose,  as  had  supposed 
Rousseau  and  his  school  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
that  man  was  a  sort  of  purely  reasoning  being, 
identical  in  all  countries,  to  whom  might  be  applied 
universal  rules  drawn  not  from  experience  and  tra- 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

dition,  but  from  the  theories  of  philosophers.  Pas- 
cal had  justly  declared:  "  There  is  nothing,  whether 
just  or  unjust,  which  does  not  change  in  nature 
with  a  change  of  climate.  Three  degrees  elevation 
from  the  pole  upset  the  whole  of  jurisprudence." 

And  Montesquieu  thought  like  Pascal  when  he 
wrote :  "  It  is  so  essential  that  laws  be  well  adapted 
to  the  country  for  which  they  are  made,  that  only 
by  the  greatest  chance  could  those  of  one  nation 
be  suitable  for  another." 

Hence,  while  we  are  free  to  admit  common  rules 
in  the  domain  of  public  law,  we  are  forced  to  ac- 
knowledge that  nothing  is  more  mutable  than  pri- 
vate law. 

The  role  of  diplomacy  here  is  to  understand  the 
divergence  of  these  laws,  which  corresponds  to  the 
difference  in  manners,  to  seek  to  reconcile  these 
varying  laws  and  thus  to  endeavor  to  protect  the 
rights  of  private  parties  even  in  a  foreign  land. 

France  was  the  first  to  enter  upon  this  field.  As 
early  as  the  eighteenth  century,  in  the  year  1760, 
she  had  concluded  with  Sardinia  a  treaty  which 
allowed  the  execution  in  our  country  of  judgments 
rendered  in  Sardinia,  provided  that  the  latter  be 
not  contrary  to  public  order,  that  they  had  been 
rendered  by  a  competent  tribunal,  and  that  the  de- 
fendant had  been  duly  summoned. 

In  1832,  the  French  government  and  the  Ger- 
man powers  along  the  Rhine,  imbued  with  the  same 

25 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

spirit,  created  a  mixed  tribunal  for  the  settlement 
of  such  difficulties  as  might  arise  in  connection  with 
navigation  on  that  river. 

In  1869,  a  treaty  was  concluded  between  Swit- 
zerland and  France,  authorizing  the  execution  in 
each  country  of  judgments  duly  rendered  in  the 
other. 

These  liberal  views,  which  rest  upon  the  mutual 
trust  felt  by  governments  in  the  spirit  of  justice 
which  animates  their  tribunals,  are  not  yet  shared 
by  all  nations;  but  we  may  hope  that  they  will 
soon  receive  general  acceptance. 

It  may  be  said  with  truth  that  in  certain  coun- 
tries the  very  mode  of  their  organization  creates  at 
times  unexpected  obstacles  to  the  carrying  out  of 
international  agreements;  and,  if  I  may  here  be 
permitted  to  make  a  suggestion  regarding  the  Uni- 
ted States,  I  beg  to  call  to  your  attention  how  the 
individual  rights  of  the  States,  which  make  up  the 
United  States,  at  times  complicate  the  task  of  the 
government  at  Washington  in  its  relations  with  for- 
eign powers.  General  treaties  concluded  with  the 
United  States  have  been  found  to  be  but  partly 
enforceable  owing  to  the  peculiar  legislation  of  cer- 
tain States. 

Thus  are  foreign  powers  brought  face  to  face 
with  this  dilemma — either  not  to  treat  at  all,  or  to 
negotiate  with  one  who  is  only  partially  qualified. 

It  seems  that  since  the  States  can  have  no  indi- 
S6 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

vidual  intercourse  with  foreign  powers,  the  federal 
government,  which  alone  possesses  the  right  to  ne- 
gotiate on  their  behalf,  should  be  empowered  to  see 
to  the  complete  execution  of  the  agreements  which 
it  has  made. 

We  must  aim  at  destroying  all  those  barriers  be- 
tween civilized  nations  which  maintain  between  them 
a  certain  indefinable  spirit  of  latent  hostility — a  lin- 
gering vestige  of  the  old  barbarism.  In  times  of 
war  we  must  seek  to  improve  the  condition  of  pri- 
vate individuals  to  a  still  greater  degree  than  has 
been  done  by  The  Hague  Conference.  Private 
property  should  receive  the  same  protection  in  naval 
as  in  land  warfare,  and  you  will,  I  am  sure,  agree 
with  me  that  the  maintenance  of  prize  laws  takes 
from  the  combatants  that  attribute  which  does  them 
the  most  honor,  that  of  disinterested  sacrifice  in 
their  country's  cause. 

Much  still  remains  to  be  done;  each  day  sees 
the  nations  grow  more  considerate  of  one  another 
in  their  mutual  intercourse.  It  is  a  notable  fact 
that,  after  the  recent  happenings  in  China,  France 
returned  to  the  Chinese  government  the  works  of 
art  which  had  been  shipped  to  her,  while  President 
Roosevelt  has  just  restored  to  China  a  sum  of 
$376,000  which  had  been  seized  in  Tientsin.  Such 
generous  proceedings  would  have  greatly  aston- 
ished our  ancestors.  The  function  of  diplomacy  is 
to  bring  forth  from  the  universal  conscience  those 

n 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

common  principles  which  the  onward  march  of  civ- 
ilization makes  it  possible  to  introduce  into  the  prac- 
tical intercourse  of  nations.  It  is  in  this  manner 
that  international  law,  public  and  private,  is  evolved 
and  determined,  while  jurisconsults  later  on  reduce 
it  to  specific  rules. 

And  thus  diplomacy  prosecutes  its  true  task, 
which  is  destined  to  become  more  complex  as  the 
relations  between  States  become  closer.  It  must 
never  espouse  the  passions,  nor  join  in  the  outbursts 
of  pride  or  enthusiasm  which  blind  nations  no  less 
than  individuals.  It  took  birth  nearly  four  cen- 
turies ago,  from  the  need  felt  by  the  Christian 
powers  to  preserve  among  themselves  a  certain 
equilibrium,  and  it  safeguards  the  rights  of  the 
weak  and  the  respect  of  individuals.  By  so  doing 
it  discharges  its  true  and  elevated  mission,  which  is 
to  be  the  instrument  of  the  world's  peace  and 
liberty. 


ftS 


A  TRUE  VIEW   OF  FRANCE* 

Gentlemen  : 

I  am  happy  to  have  this  opportunity  of  express- 
ing to  the  students  of  Columbia  University  the  very 
keen  interest  which  we  take  in  France  in  the  develop- 
ment of  American  Universities.  My  friend  Mr. 
Cohn,  who  directs  here  with  so  much  zeal  and  learn- 
ing the  Department  of  Romance  Languages,  repre- 
sents in  this  institution  the  French  spirit  and  French 
erudition.  He  is  laboring  to  establish  a  bond  of 
union  between  the  Universities  of  France  and  those 
of  the  United  States.  He  is  right,  and  we  would 
gladly  see  many  of  our  young  men  visit  America 
with  a  view  to  acquiring  from  you  something  of 
that  spirit  of  initiative  which  is  characteristic  of 
the  American  youth. 

On  the  other  hand,  you  will  permit  me  to  say 
that  I  should  hke  to  have  a  few  among  you,  who 
may  be  interested  in  high  degrees* of  culture,  visit 
our  French  universities,  in  Paris,  in  Lyons,  in  Gre- 
noble for  example,  where  special  courses  are  set 

.  *  Address  delivered  at  Columbia  University,  New  York,  on 
AprU  18th,  1900. 

39 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

apart  and  reserved  for  foreigners.  They  would 
find  there  professors  tried  and  experienced,  a  course 
impregnated  with  the  scientific  traditions  of  several 
centuries,  and  they  would  acquire  a  taste  for  disin- 
terested studies  and  pursuits.  The  tendency  in  the 
United  States  (and  this  explains  one  of  the  causes 
of  the  country's  magnificent  industrial  develop- 
ment) is  to  study  principally  those  branches  of 
human  knowledge  which  are  susceptible  of  practical 
application;  but  pure  Science  should  also  have  its 
place  in  a  great  people's  thoughts.  Without  her 
the  spirit  of  invention  must  soon  degenerate  into 
mere  ingenuity  on  the  part  of  clever  practical 
workers.  Though  this  be  not  immediately  appar- 
ent, it  is  the  search  for  scientific  truth,  with  no  other 
end  in  view  than  the  discovery  of  this  truth,  which 
proves  the  most  fruitful  of  results.  Our  immortal 
Pasteur  never  derived  any  benefit  for  himself  from 
his  discoveries;  but  his  works  have  none  the  less 
enriched  the  world,  they  have  none  the  less  revolu- 
tionized industry  and  found  innumerable  applica- 
tions. 

Should  a  few  among  you  go  to  Paris,  they  would 
discover  that  this  city,  which  is  frequently  spoken 
of  here  as  "  gay  Paris,"  is  one  of  the  most  labori- 
ous cities  in  the  world.  They  would  go  into  our 
universities,  into  the  Sorbonne  and  the  College  de 
France,  into  the  Ecole  des  Chartes  and  the  School 
of  Mines,  into  the  School  of  Fine  Arts,    They  would 

30 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

find  all  these  liberally  opened  to  foreigners,  and  it 
would  not  take  them  long  to  realize  all  the  activity 
and  life  of  our  schools,  all  the  modesty  and  depth 
of  our  most  illustrious  professors. 

But  I  am  above  all  desirous  that  they  should 
visit  the  provinces,  see  our  ancient  cities  which  in 
olden  days  were  capitals  themselves,  and  most  of 
which  to-day,  in  spite  of  the  uniformity  of  our 
centralized  political  organization,  lead  a  local  and 
independent  life  whose  originality  only  becomes 
manifest  to  those  who  dwell  long  enough  therein. 
Here,  in  the  United  States,  the  character  itself  of 
your  government  has  left  to  each  State  its  political 
individuality  and  its  own  mode  of  life:  but  the 
sudden  and  almost  simultaneous  creation  of  your 
towns,  together  with  the  extraordinary  quickness 
of  their  growth,  have  made  it  impossible  for  them 
to  differ  much  from  one  another  in  exterior  aspect ; 
and  this  fact  always  strikes  a  man  who  comes  here 
from  our  old  European  countries,  where  each  city 
has  matured  by  a  process  of  slow  formation  and 
whereupon  each  passing  century  has  left  its  own 
distinctive  mark.  In  France,  for  example,  the  prov- 
inces have  lost  all  political  individuality,  but  every 
city  bears  its  own  peculiar  stamp  and  character. 
I  will  mention  to  you  Lyons,  the  second  city  of 
France.  Here  are  stone  monuments  which  date 
back  from  the  Augustan  period,  and  you  will  find 
inscribed  on  antique  bronze  the  very  speech  deliv- 

31 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

ered  by  the  Emperor  Claudius  before  the  Senate  of 
Rome  when  he  petitioned  for  the  rights  of  a  Roman 
city  on  behalf  of  his  countrymen  the  inhabitants 
of  Lugdunum — a  discourse  which,  as  you  know, 
has  also  been  handed  down  to  us  by  Tacitus. — Its 
institutions  too  are  ancient :  its  public  charity  fund 
was  endowed  and  its  main  hospital  was  founded  by 
a  Frank  king  of  our  first  dynasty,  the  Merovingian, 
— and  the  deeds  given  by  the  barbarian  prince 
Theodebert  to  the  public  Charitable  Association 
still  remain  its  first  charter. 

And  now,  side  by  side  with  institutions  and 
monuments,  you  will  obtain  a  near  view  of  French 
society,  of  the  genuine  French  society,  which  is  so 
conservative  and  so  difficult  to  penetrate  into.  You 
will  succeed  in  doing  this  last,  however,  and  you 
will  be  invited  to  take  your  seat  by  the  hearth  of 
our  ancient  families,  for  with  us  the  word  "  hearth  " 
corresponds  precisely  with  your  "  home,"  and  we 
find  therein  a  strangely  stirring  suggestion,  evo- 
king as  it  does  before  our  minds  the  image  of 
father,  mother  and  children  meeting  together  and 
gathering  around  the  hearth,  seeking,  tasting  and 
enjoying  by  the  warm  glow  of  the  fire  the  soft  and 
sweet  intimacy  of  life  in  common. 

The  French   family   life   is   closely,   jealously 

guarded    from   outside   intrusion;    in   our   middle 

classes  and  among  our  small  tradesmen  the  wife 

takes  a  hand  in  all  of  the  husband's  occupations; 

S2 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

she  finds  in  this  her  honor  and  her  dignity;  while 
there  exists  between  the  mother  and  her  sons  a  sort 
of  tender,  loving  friendship  which  adds  a  new  ele- 
ment to  maternal  devotion  and  mingles  with  the  re- 
spect shown  by  children  to  their  parents  a  charming 
atid  graceful  familiarity.  It  is  an  ever  new  spec- 
tacle for  Americans  in  France,  to  behold  on  Sun- 
days Frenchmen  of  all  classes,  save  alone  those  who 
belong  to  international  circles,  promenading  with 
their  children.  We  consider  that  the  family  is,  so 
to  speak,  an  association,  in  which  every  member 
has  rights,  even  the  day's  new-born  babe;  and  this 
is  why  by  our  laws  the  father  may  only  dispose  of 
a  small  part  of  his  fortune  and  cannot  completely 
disinherit  his  children;  while,  should  he  fall  into 
want,  the  courts  may  compel  his  children  to  furnish 
him  all  that  he  needs  in  order  to  live  in  a  respectable 
manner. 

Our  provincial  Frenchman  is  not  usually  bold 
in  his  enterprises ;  but  he  possesses  a  quality  which 
is  always  a  great  source  of  strength :  he  is  econom- 
ical. He  thinks  of  and  provides  for  the  morrow, 
and  is  ever  upbuilding  that  enormous  fortune  of 
France  which  astonishes  and  excites  the  envy  of 
foreign  financiers. — He  cultivates  in  his  modest 
mode  of  life  charming  virtues  of  simplicity  and 
grace;  he  is  fond  of  moderation  in  everything,  in 
ambition  as  well  as  in  pleasure,  and  it  may  be  that 
in  this  he  is  only  practicing  the  true  philosophy 

33 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

of  a  life  which  he  means  to  enjoy.  This  man,  who 
is  often  accused  of  nervousness  and  impatience,  is 
satisfied,  too  easily  satisfied,  with  a  small  employ- 
ment ;  he  does  not  like  to  undertake  too  much.  He 
is  quick  to  rail  at  strong  imaginations  and  mis- 
trusts experiments.  Assuredly  very  few  of  them 
have  read  either  Montaigne  or  Voltaire;  yet  it  is 
probably  necessary  to  consult  these  authors  in  or- 
der to  acquire  a  correct  notion  of  the  average  ideal 
of  the  French. 

If  you  desire  to  know  provincial  life  in  France 
and  to  discover  what  it  is  that  renders  it  somewhat 
narrow  at  the  same  time  that  it  makes  it  delightful, 
you  must  read  Balzac,  and,  among  the  writers  of 
the  present  day,  M.  Bazin.  Mr.  Bazin's  novels  are 
in  nowise  similar  to  what  is  so  erroneously  spoken 
of  in  this  country  as  a  French  novel :  young  women 
everywhere  may  read  and  enjoy  them,  and  I  must 
state  in  passing  that  I  regret  their  being  so  little 
known  and  read  in  America. 

This  provincial  life,  unoccupied  and  void  as  it 
sometimes  becomes,  affords  to  men  of  studious  tend- 
encies all  the  leisure  which  they  desire.  I  know  that 
I  shall  scandalize  you  somewhat  by  singing  the 
praises  of  leisure:  thank  Heaven,  you  are  not  of 
those  who  look  upon  work  as  a  burden;  but  yet  to 
labor  at  one's  profession  or  trade  is  not  everything. 
There  is  another  work  which  is  no  less  essential: 
it  is  that  of  reflexion  and  thought,  which  permits 
34 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

and  fosters  the  development  of  the  moral  being 
that  we  are  and  which  we  must  remain.  One  would 
think  indeed  that  certain  people  in  this  world  take 
life  for  nothing  but  a  race-course,  forgetting  that 
the  prize  to  be  won  is  not  outside  of  ourselves,  that 
there  are  other  things  to  achieve  besides  the  amass- 
ing of  wealth,  and  that  it  is  less  important  to  cause 
a  stir  around  us,  than,  as  Voltaire  said,  to  cultivate 
our  own  private  garden. 

Go  then  to  visit  France;  you  will  be  benefitted 
and  interested  by  it,  if  you  know  how  to  see  her 
as  she  is. 

I,  for  my  part,  have  frequently  noticed  In;  my 
European  travels  how  little  they  on  the  other  side 
know  of  America ; — I  have  often  noted  in  America 
how  little  was  known  of  actual  Europe.  It  is  right 
that  these  false  impressions  be  corrected;  and  this 
should  prove  all  the  more  simple  of  accomplishment 
because,  in  my  judgment,  there  exist  between  the 
French  and  American  peoples  far  more  points  of 
contact  and  far  more  sources  of  affinity  than  is  ordi- 
narily suspected.  A  Parisian  tailor  told  me  one 
day  that  two  women  alone  in  the  world  knew  how 
to  dress:  the  French  and  the  American.  This  re- 
mark will  perhaps  impress  you  as  frivolous ;  I  con- 
sider that  it  is  on  the  contrary  very  significant.  If 
two  women  whom  all  circumstances  combine  to  hold 
apart,  distance,  education,  social  atmosphere,  pos- 
sess the  same  tastes,  it  must  be  that  they  obey  the 

35 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

same  sentiments,  and  that  they  are  linked  together 
by  some  secret  community  of  tie,  by  similar  aspira- 
tions. All  things  have  their  significance;  and  the 
part  played  by  women  is  too  dominant  in  this  world 
for  the  affinities  which  unite  them  not  to  exist  like- 
wise between  the  two  social  bodies  which  they  adorn. 
Permit  me,  young  gentlemen,  in  closing  these 
few  remarks,  to  place  the  brief  suggestions  which 
I  have  given  you  under  the  patronage  of  these 
women  of  France  and  of  America  of  whom  we  have 
just  spoken.  I  am  convinced  that  these  fashionable, 
educated  women,  who  are  also  interested  in  things 
of  the  mind,  and  whose  role  is  so  commanding  in 
American  society,  would  remind  you,  as  I  do  myself, 
that  the  youth  of  ancient  Rome,  rich  and  powerful 
though  it  was,  journeyed  to  Athens  to  acquire  Attic 
grace  and  to  hear  and  profit  by  the  conversations  of 
academic  gardens. 


36 


FRANCE  AND  THE  FORMATION 
OF  THE  AMERICAN  IDEAL* 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 

I  must  begin  by  making  a  confession.  Once  I 
had  accepted  this  invitation  to  speak  before  you, 
it  seemed  to  me  that  I  had  acted  imprudently,  for, 
to  be  frank,  I  did  not  know  on  what  topic  I  would 
entertain  you.  I  could  not  talk  literature  to  you, — 
for  that  is  not  my  profession;  it  was  equally  im- 
possible for  me  to  talk  to  you  politics,  for  this  is 
indeed  my  profession. 

However,  as  I  looked  for  a  subject,  it  occurred 
to  me  that,  representing  France  as  I  do  in  this 
country,  I  could  not  do  better  than  to  call  your 
attention  briefly  to  the  part  which  that  nation  has 
played  in  the  moulding  of  an  American  ideal.  The 
suggestion  of  communicating  to  you  my  conclusions 
on  this  point  arose  from  an  observation  which  I  read 
in  Mr.  Bryce's  handsome  work  on  the  American 
Commonwealth.  This  eminent  writer,  while  paying 
tribute  to  the  activity  and  energy  displayed  by  the 

*  An  address  delivered  at  the  Alliance  Fran9aise  in  Boston, 
March  24th,  1901. 

37 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

French  race  in  the  discovery  of  most  of  North 
America  and  in  the  conquest  of  those  regions  which 
to-day  constitute  the  great  American  West,  seems 
struck  by  the  small  part  of  influence  which  this 
race  has  preserved  in  the  social  life  of  the  United 
States.  I  believe  that  Mr.  Bryce  is  correct  if  you 
view  the  situation  only  from  the  political  stand- 
point ;  and  as  the  mechanism  of  political  society  in 
the  United  States  formed  the  main  subject  of  his 
analysis,  his  remark  is  justified  to  a  certain  degree. 
It  becomes  erroneous,  however,  if  we  look  at  things 
from  the  moral  point  of  view. 

We  must  note  that,  in  order  to  judge  of  the 
moral  influence  exerted  by  France  in  the  world,  one 
must  first  of  all  know  and  understand  the  French 
character ;  and  I  am  free  to  admit  that  the  French 
do  all  in  their  power  to  dissimulate  it  from  stran- 
gers. We  delight  too  much  in  veiling  our  good 
points  and  in  exhibiting  the  others. — I  remember 
meeting  one  day  your  eminent  artist,  Mr.  Gibson. 
I  took  the  liberty  of  asking  him  why  it  was  that 
when  he  wished  to  represent  English  life  he  depicted 
scenes  from  the  fashionable  London  world,  while 
his  reproductions  of  French  life  were  restricted  to 
scenes  which  emanated  from  cafes  and  from  low 
places  of  amusement  which  no  Frenchmen  of  dis- 
tinction would  ever  think  of  frequenting. — "  Well," 
was  Mr.  Gibson's  reply,  "  I  have  drawn  that  which 
3^ou  exhibit  to  us  when  we  visit  Paris.  You  do  not 
38 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

permit  us  to  enter  your  homes." — This  is  true,  and 
it  is  to  be  regretted.  There  exists  no  social  organ- 
ization more  jealously  guarded  than  French  society 
for  there  is  no  country  wherein  the  family  is  more 
closely  knit  together. 

The  extreme  liberty  manifest  in  a  certain  por- 
tion of  our  literature  enhances  that  impression. — 
It  is  often  made  the  standard  by  which  one  judges 
of  the  intellectual  production  of  France,  overlook- 
ing the  fact  completely  that  this  particular  kind 
of  literature  is  intended  for  a  particular  public  and, 
we  must  say  the  word,  for  the  foreign  tourists  whom 
it  delights. 

Finally,  an  excessive  sense  and  fear  of  the  ridic- 
ulous and  a  certain  hatred  of  that  Pharisaism  which 
to  us  is  at  once  as  the  most  miserable  and  the  most 
selfish  of  by-plays,  make  us  quite  willing  to  appear 
more  wicked  than  we  actually  are. — Louis  XIV, 
speaking  one  day  of  his  nephew,  the  Duke  of  Or- 
leans, the  future  regent,  whom  they  were  criticizing 
before  him,  said  that  he  was  "  a  parader  of  vice." 
The  French  indulge  frequently  in  this  parading  ex- 
hibition: there  are  others  who  plume  themselves  on 
being  paraders  of  virtue,  but  I  am  not  certain  that 
a  probing  of  their  conscience  would  prove  them  to 
be  much  superior  in  this  respect. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  one  who  aims  to 
understand  the  true  nature  and  character  of  the 
French  spirit  must  observe  and  study  its  perma- 

39 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

nent  manifestations : — first  of  all,  he  must  feel  the 
genius  of  that  which  is  its  most  intimate  expression 
and  its  very  form,  our  language.  What  are  the 
predominant  characteristics  of  the  French  tongue, 
that  tongue  of  which  Voltaire  could  affirm  that  the 
lack  of  clearness  in  any  phrase  constructed  therein 
must  inevitably  stamp  it  as  incorrectly  written? 
They  are  clearness,  simplicity,  logic  in  the  orderly 
arrangement  of  words,  which  is  emblematic  of  logic 
in  the  conception  of  ideas;  and  lastly,  a  unique 
power  and  force  of  analysis.  Hence  in  our  litera- 
ture the  preeminence  of  moralists,  the  abundance 
and  brilliancy  of  memoirs  and  of  collections  of  cor- 
respondence. Who  is  there  that  could  be  compared 
with  La  Rochefoucauld,  with  St.  Simon,  with  Mme. 
de  Sevigne  or  with  the  du  DefFand? — I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  any  other  country  has  produced  a  Racine 
who  sounded  all  the  mainsprings  of  the  human  soul 
and  of  the  feminine  heart,  who  described  and  repro- 
duced their  every  movement  and  who  suppressed 
from  his  dramas  all  scenery  and  external  incidents : 
The  development  of  passion  forms  his  exclusive 
study  and  his  theatre  is  systematically  denuded  of 
everything  which  might  please  the  eye  or  divert  the 
imagination:  this  is  why  Racine,  the  most  perfect 
of  our  poets,  remains  the  most  unintelligible  and 
the  most  inaccessible  to  foreigners. 

Nor  do  I  believe  that  any  other  language  could 
have  /urnished  Voltaire  his  most  powerful  weapon. 

40 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

His  dialectic  remains  still  unrivalled  in  precision 
and  clearness,  while  with  him  passion  appears  rea- 
sonable and  reason  is  twice  reason,  so  far  is  this 
marvelous  writer  from  seeking  after  effect. 

If  now  we  pass  from  the  domain  of  literature 
into  the  field  of  art,  and  particularly  of  painting, 
— since  it  is  only  from  the  greater  manifestations 
of  intellectual  activity  that  we  can  define  the  spirit 
of  a  race  and  the  measure  of  influence  that  it  exerts 
on  the  world — what  do  we  find?  The  same  phe- 
nomena, flowing  from  the  same  cause.  From  Clouet 
to  Poussin,  from  David  to  Puvis  de  Chavannes, 
French  tradition  perpetuates  itself  almost  without 
interruption.  It  brings  into  the  reproduction  of 
forms  a  precision,  a  clearness,  a  conscientiousness 
which  fall  little  short  of  actual  severity.  This  we 
must  realize  in  order  to  fully  appreciate  the  lofty 
significance  of  the  words  spoken  by  one  of  our 
greatest  masters,  Mr.  Ingres,  who  claimed  this  sin- 
cerity, this  conscientiousness  as  an  honor  and  who 
said,  summing  up  in  one  expression  all  the  tenden- 
cies of  our  genius :  "  Drawing  is  the  probity  of  art." 

The  same  may  be  said  of  sculpture ;  but  here  the 
very  conditions  under  which  the  artist  labors,  the 
precision  to  which  he  is  compelled  by  the  working 
of  marble,  the  nature  of  his  resources  which  de- 
prives him  of  the  occasionally  deceptive  possibilities 
of  colors,  and  leaves  him  naught  save  the  reality  of 
form,  all  these  facts  which  make  of  sculpture  an  art 

41 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

wherein  all  must  be  settled  and  determined,  have 
combined  from  the  Middle  Ages  to  the  present  to 
make  it  one  especially  well  adapted  to  our  peculiar 
qualities;  and  it  may  be  affirmed  without  fear  of 
contradiction  that  no  School  of  Sculpture,  since  the 
Italian  school  of  the  16th  century,  has  surpassed 
or  even  rivalled  the  French  School,  that  of  Houdon, 
of  David  d' Angers,  and  of  Falguiere. 

And  if  you  take  up  our  architecture,  you  will 
find  there  also,  whatever  be  the  epoch,  a  manifesta- 
tion of  the  same  genius.  The  cathedral  of  Chartres, 
the  Sainte  Chapelle  in  Paris,  are  undoubtedly  the 
two  most  wonderful  masterpieces  of  Gothic  art  in 
the  Middle  Ages.  Study  these,  and  you  will  find 
that,  amid  the  general  movement  of  a  style  of  archi- 
tecture than  which  no  other  perhaps  was  ever  more 
varied  or  more  constantly  productive  of  picturesque 
details  of  form,  the  genius  of  our  old  masters 
stamped  them  also  with  the  spirit  of  the  race.  The 
purity  of  design,  the  simplicity  of  conception,  and 
the  precision,  the  clearness  of  effect  in  these  great 
edifices  can  only  be  compared,  in  another  architec- 
tural field,  with  the  purity,  with  the  simplicity  and 
with  the  precision  of  the  Grecian  temples.  If  now 
you  look  down  through  the  vista  of  years  as  far  as 
the  18th  century,  you  will  note  that  the  same  char- 
acteristics differentiate  the  Trianon  of  Louis  XV 
and  the  Naval  edifice  of  the  Place  de  la  Concorde 
from  the  "  rococo  "  German  style  of  the  same  period 
4^ 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

which  then  flourished  in  Dresden.  We  do  not  ap- 
preciate crooked  lines. 

Finally,  we  may  leave  these  arts  which  have  long 
been  thought  exclusive  in  their  power  to  retain  the 
attention  of  artists,  and  we  may  pass  on  to  one 
which,  though  in  a  sense  more  ordinary  and  famil- 
iar, is  none  the  less  one  of  the  most  delicate  arts 
and  one  of  the  quickest  to  take  on  the  mark  of  a 
people's  tastes.  Let  us  consider  the  art  of  furniture 
designing.  Do  we  not  find  its  most  perfect  expres- 
sion in  what  we  call  the  Louis  XVI  style  of  furni- 
ture? The  line  is  straight  and  clear;  the  surfaces 
are  not  surfeited  with  adornments;  the  whole  gen- 
eral grace  of  design  in  no  way  detracts  from  the 
solid  impression  and  we  have  never  beheld  in  a 
familiar  object  a  more  perfect  blending  of  dignity 
with  convenience  and  comfort,  of  simplicity  with 
brilliancy. 

Yes,  you  may  take  a  tragedy  of  Racine,  a 
thought  culled  from  La  Rochefoucauld,  a  letter 
from  Voltaire,  a  drawing  by  Ingres,  a  fresco  by 
Puvis  de  Chavannes,  a  piece  of  furniture  from 
Gouthieres  or  a  French  cathedral,  you  will  in  all 
these  find  a  proof  of  the  same  origin,  a  trace 
and  the  seal  of  the  same  genius. 

Such  stable  qualities  and  such  persistent  charac- 
teristics could  not  fail  to  manifest  themselves  also 
in  all  other  functions  of  human  activity,  and  you 

43 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

will  readily  assume  that  France,  in  the  domain  of 
Religion,  in  the  realm  of  Philosophy,  in  the  polit- 
ical field  and  even  in  her  history,  has  given  proof 
of  the  same  precision,  of  the  same  logic,  of  the  same 
ambition  to  clearly  express  the  conceptions  of  her 
mind,  and  hence  to  give  them  immediate  embodi- 
ment in  facts. 

We  may,  if  you  wish,  take  as  an  example  the 
great  movement  of  the  Reformation. — ^Luther,  in 
Germany,  builds  on  princely  props,  while  the  Eng- 
lish reformation  dons  something  of  a  royal  and  po- 
litical nature  which  results  mainly  in  an  adultera- 
tion of  its  essential  character. — But  in  France  the 
new  spirit  finds  its  exponent  in  an  humble  chorister 
of  the  cathedral  of  Noyon :  the  style  of  his  written 
composition  (for  with  us  the  artist  must  survive 
even  in  the  most  austere  religions)  commands  a 
place  for  him  among  the  masters  of  the  language ; 
his  thoughts  are  so  nakedly  expressed,  his  conclu- 
sions are  so  logically  deduced,  and  his  purpose  to 
carry  them  out  in  practice  is  so  uncompromising, 
that  he  is  in  a  sense  driven  to  found  on  the  shores 
of  Lake  Leman  a  republic  of  his  own  wherein  he 
may  practice  his  doctrine;  and  the  most  radical,  to 
use  a  modern  expression,  the  most  radical  of  all 
promoters  of  the  Reformation  is,  and  must  be,  the 
Frenchman  Calvin. 

France,  for  many  reasons  too  numerous  to  in- 
quire into  here,  could  not  but  remain  Catholic ;  but 
44 


ESSAYS   AND    ADDRESSES 

it  seems  that  within  the  very  unity  of  Catholicism 
the  Gallic  Church  has  earned  for  itself  a  place  pre- 
eminent and  apart,  thanks  to  the  grace  and  judg- 
ment of  a  St.  Francis  of  Sales,  as  well  as  to  the  ex- 
traordinary genius  of  a  Bossuet,  whom  some  have 
denominated  the  last  of  the  Fathers. 

France,  moreover,  in  the  17th  century,  was  the 
birthplace  and  cradle  of  Jansenism,  the  most  aus- 
tere and,  without  a  doubt,  the  most  excessive  mani- 
festation of  religious  thought.  The  stern  abbe  of 
St.  Cyran  was  the  founder  of  that  Port  Royal  which 
figures  so  prominently  in  the  history  of  religious 
ideas,  and  which  became  the  rendez-vous  to  which 
gathered,  for  a  nearer  approach  to  the  Sovereign 
Judge,  all  the  notable  personalities  of  France  in 
that  great  century,  from  Pascal  to  Racine  and  to 
the  Arnaulds  themselves. 

Even  in  more  recent  times  France  has  proved  by 
far  the  most  active  and  the  most  energetic  field  for 
that  religious  revival  which,  in  the  first  third  of 
the  last  century,  reacted  everywhere  so  powerfully 
against  the  materialism  of  the  18th  century.  In 
France  again,  reappeared  those  religious  congrega- 
tions which  time  had  tainted  with  corruption,  but 
which  now  resuscitated  the  mystic  spirit  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  I  shall  not  speak  to  you  of  the 
tortures  inflicted  on  himself  by  a  Lacordaire,  offer- 
ing up  to  God  in  his  lonely  cell  the  punishment  of 
his  body  and  the  humiliation  of  his  genius. 

45 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

Indeed,  when  I  recall  the  great  names  of  relig- 
ious history  in  France, — ^and  how  few  of  these 
have  I  enumerated, — may  I  not  feel  astonishment 
at  the  frivolous  reputation  which  is  given  us,  and 
am  I  not  justified  in  concluding  that  frivolous 
critics  alone  can  entertain  this  view  of  us? 

And  as  the  logical  bent  which  we  have  just 
demonstrated  impels  the  Frenchman  to  body  forth 
into  his  own  acts  his  ideas  and  his  faith,  it  follows 
that  France  is  more  productive  of  good  works  than 
any  other  nation.  The  Orient  is  filled  with  our 
hospitals  and  schools.  We  are  taunted  with  in- 
competency to  colonize  the  world  industrially ;  but, 
as  was  justly  observed  by  the  celebrated  Austrian 
diplomat,  Mr.  de  Hubner,  in  the  recital  of  his  trav- 
els around  the  globe,  we  colonize  it  morally  by  our 
works  of  charity.  Do  you  know — perhaps  you  are 
not  aware  of  the  fact — that  of  all  teaching  and 
charitable  institutions  in  these  United  States  the 
French  establishments  are  the  most  numerous.?  In 
no  city  do  I  fail  to  miss  our  Little  Sisters  of  the 
Poor,  our  Sisters  of  Providence,  our  Christian 
Brothers,  and  we  open  our  schools  here  to  more  than 
400,000  of  your  little  girls. 

But  I  beg  you  to  leave  now  these  manifestations 
of  the  French  religious  spirit,  and  to  join  me  in 
an  inquiry  whether  the  characteristics  of  our  race 
do  not  likewise  find  expression  among  our  philoso- 
phers. You  will  recognize  them  in  all  of  the  latter, 
46 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

and  this  is  why  France  has  always  excelled  all  other 
nations  in  her  number  of  learned  men  devoted  to  the 
higher  mathematics. 

We  may  head  the  list  with  the  greatest  of  all, 
with  a  man  whose  name  marks  the  origin  of  the  evo- 
lution of  human  thought  during  the  last  two  cen- 
turies. I  refer  to  Descartes.  Nothing  could  be 
clearer,  from  the  very  first  perusal,  or  could  appear 
more  simple  than  his  imperishable  Discourse  on 
Method;  nothing  could  be  written  in  a  more  even 
style,  or  could  be  more  free  from  that  mist  of  heavy 
metaphysical  expressions  in  which  others  are  apt 
so  frequently  to  envelop  their  philosophy.  With 
a  potency  of  logic  from  which  it  is  impossible  to 
escape,  the  master  begins  by  eliminating  absolutely 
from  the  equation  the  whole  range  of  his  learning; 
he  descends  into  himself;  he  probes  his  own  con- 
sciousness, and  upon  the  latter,  as  upon  the  only 
solid  substantial  foundation,  he  constructs  the  en- 
tire edifice  of  human  knowledge. — The  whole  de- 
duction flows  as  of  its  own  accord,  and  beneath  this 
apparent  simplicity  lies  the  greatest  logical  eff^ort 
and  lurks  the  source  of  the  greatest  intellectual 
evolution  that  the  world  has  ever  seen. 

The  encyclopedists  of  the  18th  century  are  the 
degenerate  offspring  of  Descartes'  mind;  and  in 
our  own  day,  when  indeed  churches  are  frequented 
but  men,  for  the  majority,  live  in  practice  as  though 
they  were  purely  agnostic,  we  find  the  human  con- 

47 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

ception  of  the  world,  as  entertained  by  the  19th 
century,  formulated  by  Auguste  Comte,  the  master 
who  is  to  number  among  his  pupils  Stuart  Mill  and 
Herbert  Spencer.  This  great  intellect,  however, 
urged  on  by  this  constant  need  of  practical  realiza- 
tion which  I  have  already  pointed  out  to  you  as  a 
peculiar  trait  of  the  French  turn  of  mind,  was  not 
satisfied  with  formulating  the  principles  of  positive 
philosophy ;  he  insisted  on  creating  a  religion,  the 
religion  of  humanity,  and  this  strange  undertaking 
appeared  to  him  as  the  necessary  and  rational  con- 
sequence of  his  work. 

I  stated  to  you  just  now  that,  in  politics  as  well 
as  in  religion  and  in  philosophy,  France,  by  that 
excess  and  abuse  of  logic  which  takes  no  considera- 
tion either  of  external  facts  or  of  past  events,  had 
always  sought  to  make  her  acts  the  embodiment  of 
her  conceptions.  We  need  look  no  further  for  a 
key  to  her  persistency,  at  all  times,  in  making  war 
for  an  idea,  and  we  touch  here  the  very  mainspring 
of  the  part  which  she  has  played,  for  nearly  a  cen- 
tury now,  as  standard-bearer  and  apostle  of  the 
liberal  and  revolutionary  spirit. 

We  find  here  also  a  clue  to  the  origin  of  the 
French  Revolution: — for  just  as  Descartes  had  dis- 
carded in  his  mmd  all  ideas  and  notions  proceeding 
from  without  himself,  so  Rousseau  in  liis  Social 
Contract  was  to  discard  all  human  institutions  in 
order  to  reconstruct  society  on  the  assumption  of 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

a  mutual  consent;  and  the  people  of  France,  ex- 
hilarated by  this  philosophy,  broke  violently  from 
their  secular  traditions  —  they  erected  scaffolds 
thinking  in  a  few  days  to  achieve  those  principles 
of  liberty,  equality  and  fraternity  which  are  the 
noble  expression  of  their  ideal. 

And  now,  gentlemen,  I  must  acknowledge  that 
in  speaking  to  you  of  this  conception  of  the  abso- 
lute in  politics,  which  has  characterized  and  does 
still  characterize  the  majority  of  Frenchmen,  but 
which  is  so  far  removed  from  your  own  conception 
in  the  United  States,  I  seem  to  have  strayed  far  in- 
deed from  the  proposition  with  which  I  began  this 
talk.  I  beg  you,  however,  to  stop  a  moment,  to 
analyze  yourselves  and  to  consider  what  you  are. 

Here,  in  Boston  particularly,  you  are  the  de- 
scendants of  those  Puritans  who  came  to  America 
when  driven  out  by  the  Church  of  England.  Now 
these  Puritans,  your  ancestors,  inimical  as  they  were 
to  all  hierarchy,  were,  whether  they  hailed  from 
Scotland  or  from  England,  all  connected  with  Cal- 
vin. He  was  their  first  master.  Hence  it  is  that 
the  French  idea  of  Reformation  dominates  your 
own  religious  conception  and  is  the  keynote  of  its 
character. — It  dominates  none  the  less  your  polit- 
ical conception:  even  when  you  were  still  attached 
to  the  British  Crown,  it  was  the  republican  spirit 
of  Geneva  which  inspired  your  institutions  and  gov- 
erned your  manners.    So  that  in  the  political  no  less 

49 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

than  in  the  philosophical  order,  the  men  who  orig- 
inally contributed  most  forcibly  to  the  moulding  of 
your  institutions  had  imbibed  a  strong  draught  of 
French  influence.  Among  these  were  Benjamin 
Franklin,  whose  love  of  our  country  I  need  not  in- 
sist upon  here,  and  above  all  Jeif  erson,  a  close  stu- 
dent and  earnest  disciple  of  our  own  philosophic 
writers,  whose  every  thought  and  act,  whose  prin- 
ciples and  conduct,  whose  great  deeds  and  whose 
errors,  whose  ultra-democratic  internal  policy  and 
whose  maritime  policy  abroad,  are  all  impossible  of 
explanation  save  through  the  subjection  of  his  mind 
to  the  influence  of  French  notions  and  doctrines: 
indeed  you  must  have  noted  yourselves  that  it  would 
require  little  effort  to  assume,  even  from  the  stand- 
point of  its  style,  that  the  Declaration  of  Rights 
had  been  drawn  up  by  one  of  the  Encyclopedic 
writers. 

It  may  be  that  since  then,  owing  to  the  prevail- 
ing role  played  by  New  England  in  the  American 
social  system,  these  analogies  which  I  have  pointed 
out  between  the  French  thought  and  spirit,  and  the 
thought  and  spirit  which  animated  the  authors  of 
your  Constitution,  have  seemed  to  disappear.  But 
they  are  none  the  less  subsistent;  they  are  an  ex- 
pression of  the  sentiments  cherished  by  a  generality 
of  the  American  people,  and  they  will  again  become 
more  manifest  as  the  centre  of  activity  in  the  United 
States  undergoes  a  change  or  modification.  I  need 
50 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

no  stronger  proof  of  this  than  the  emancipatory 
character  of  your  wars.  I  am  not  referring  merely 
to  your  Civil  War,  wherein  was  involved  the  great 
vital  question  of  Slavery  and  of  the  rights  possessed 
by  a  human  being.  Reflect  upon  your  last  war. 
The  democracy  of  these  United  States  aroused  itself 
to  enthusiasm  over  the  thought  of  combating  to 
free  a  whole  people ;  and  I  know  of  no  other  democ- 
racy in  history  than  that  of  France,  which  yielded 
to  similar  outbursts  and  felt  to  the  same  degree 
this  need  of  stamping  its  enterprises,  in  its  own 
eyes  and  in  those  of  the  world,  with  a  character 
and  seal  of  disinterestedness. 

The  fact  is  that  there  is  just  about  as  much 
reason  for  calling  us  Latins,  we  Frenchmen  who  are 
Flemish  and  Normans,  Britons  and  Basques,  we  who 
hail  from  Savoy  and  Auvergne,  from  Burgundy 
and  Lorraine,  and  who,  even  in  Provence,  have 
nothing  Latin  save  the  tongue, — as  there  is  to  call 
you  Anglo-Saxons,  you  who  number  many  less  Eng- 
lishmen than  Celts  from  Scotland  and  Ireland, 
than  Germans  and  Italians,  and  not  many  more 
than  Frenchmen! 

And  it  is  well  that  you  be  not  exclusively  of 
English  origin.  Humanity  has  always  progressed 
through  contact  and  friction  between  different  peo- 
ples ;  even  War  has  had  its  turn  in  promoting  civ- 
ilization. It  is  necessary  that  various  races  should 
unite  in  a  common  effort,  and  should  transform  and 

51 


ESSAYS   AND   ADDRESSES 

fructify  their  accumulated  riches  of  more  ancient 
civilizations,  by  contributing  each  its  own  peculiar 
genius,  its  beliefs,  its  ideal.  Do  not  forget  that 
the  stagnancy  from  which  China  has  suffered  for 
so  many  centuries  was  due  precisely  to  her  isolated 
existence ;  w  hile  Greece  and  Alexandria,  in  the  days 
of  antiquity,  only  played  the  role  that  history  has 
recorded  of  them  because  they  were  the  welding 
point  wherein  the  Orient  and  Occident  met  and  were 
fused  together. 

France  was  first,  after  the  fall  of  the  Roman 
empire,  to  form  a  people  and  to  constitute  a  na- 
tion. She  derived  her  vitality  and  her  strength 
from  the  fact  that  she  was  not  merely  a  new  race, 
as  in  Germany,  nor  an  ancient  race  as  in  Italy, 
but  a  combination  of  all  the  qualities  and  traits 
which  these  already  bore.  It  was  on  the  soil  of 
France  that  these  races  had  mingled  to  be  cast 
into  one;  and  there  had  sprung  from  this  intimate 
union  a  new  race  which  was  the  French  nation,  the 
French  spirit,  and  which  was  the  first  of  all  to  open 
and  clear  the  way  for  modern  civilization. 

So  shall  I  prophesy  of  you,  who  are  now  nurs- 
ing the  first  offshoots  of  a  new  race  as  well  as  of 
a  new  nation,  in  which  are  to  blend  and  to  flourish 
all  the  resources  of  all  the  old  races  which  have 
combined  to  colonize  your  territory. 

Now  let  us  consider  the  moment  of  history  at 
which  we  stand.  A  new  day  is  dawning  for  hu- 
52 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

manity.  Never  since  the  discovery  of  America  in 
the  15th  century,  has  a  vaster  field  loomed  up  for 
the  development  of  civilization.  While  the  nations 
of  Europe  are  taking  possession  of  Africa,  the  re- 
gions of  the  Pacific  and  of  the  Extreme  Orient  rise 
up  before  us  as  if  destined  to  assume  in  the  desti- 
nies of  humanity  an  importance  which  it  seems  im- 
possible to  calculate.  And  it  appears  that  in  this 
great  movement  now  beginning  you  are  to  be  called, 
by  the  very  force  of  circumstances,  to  play  the 
predominating  role.  The  nature  and  trend  of  your 
politics,  the  consequences  of  your  last  war,  your 
economical  interests,  everything  tends  to  indicate 
that  you  will  be  the  first  to  write  upon  this  page, 
still  white  as  yet,  of  the  world's  history.  So  that 
you,  who  represent  all  the  races  of  Europe,  must 
now  play  in  the  Pacific  a  part  similar  to  that  which 
was  incumbent  upon  France  in  Europe,  in  the  first 
centuries  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

And  here  I  desire  to  suggest  and  to  propose 
the  question  which,  in  my  humble  opinion,  is  the 
gravest,  the  most  serious  consideration  that  can  oc- 
cupy the  thoughts  of  persons  who  reflect  in  the 
United  States,  —  the  question  of  knowing,  not 
whether  you  will  become  a  great  empire, — this  you 
are  already  and  you  are  called  to  still  more  luxu- 
riant growth,  —  but 'whether,  with  your  future 
achievements,  you  will  contribute  something  new  to 
the  moral  and  intellectual  heritage  of  humanity. 

53 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

The  question  is  not  to  ascertain  whether  or  not  you 
will  conquer  a  high  place  in  the  political  history 
of  humanity,  but  whether  you  will  gain  a  prominent 
place  in  its  heart  and  in  its  mind  or  spirit.  The 
subjects  of  Xerxes  or  Darius  might  look  down  upon 
and  despise  a  citizen  of  diminutive  Athens;  yet 
who  is  there  among  you  that  would  not  rather  a 
thousand  times  have  been  that  citizen  of  Athens 
than  have  figured  among  those  Oriental  hordes  that 
suffered  the  domination  of  the  master  of  Persia? 

You,  who  are  called  to  play  a  new  role  in  his- 
tory, must  determine  whether  you  will  play  one  also 
in  the  domain  of  the  Mind;  and  having  now,  more 
than  a  century  since  achieved  your  political  inde- 
pendence, you  must  decide  whether  or  not  you  will 
likewise  assert  your  intellectual  originality. 

I,  for  my  part,  feel  no  apprehension  on  this 
point.  I  do  not  think  that  Mr.  Bryce  is  correct 
when  he  discerns  in  American  society  nothing  be- 
yond the  influence  of  English  ideas:  had  he  lived 
in  imperial  Rome,  he  would  perhaps  have  denied 
the  influence  of  Grecian  thought,  which  it  is  true 
was  not  apparent  in  Roman  politics  but  which  nour- 
ished with  its  divine  inspiration  the  soul  of  Virgil. 

And  so  it  is  with  yourselves :  your  race  is  as  a 
solid  and  sonorous  bronze,  wherein  are  molten  to- 
gether coarse  as  well  as  precious  metals,  and  which 
constitutes  a  new  alloy  fitted  to  the  important  task 
for  which  it  is  intended  by  the  divine  Architect 
54 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

Who  directs  the  universe.  May  you  therefore  re- 
main faithful  to  your  several  origins,  and  you  will 
thus  be  intellectually,  as  well  as  morally,  what  you 
actually  are  ethnologically  speaking.  You  will  fail 
in  your  mission  if  you  attempt  to  be  but  the  offshoot 
of  a  single  tree  in  the  European  forest.  The  winds 
which  for  four  centuries  have  propelled  so  many 
ships  to  the  American  coast  have  brought  you  seeds 
which  have  taken  root  in  all  the  fields  of  mental 
activity.  Let  them  all  bear  fruit  here !  Continue 
to  open  the  way  for  German  culture  and  for  French 
culture,  and  you  will  thus  remain  yourselves.  You 
are  acquainted  with  the  saying,  that  we  must  be- 
ware of  the  man  of  one  book,  "  timeo  hominem  unius 
libri."  Be  not  that  man,  and  then  shall  the  book 
which  you  will  write  yourselves  be  indeed  your  own 
production. 

In  fact,  I  feel  quite  at  rest  on  this  point.  It 
is  here,  in  this  illustrious  city  of  Boston,  that  the 
new  and  free  America  was  born;  it  is  here  that 
things  of  the  mind  are  held  in  the  highest  honor  and 
esteem;  and  this  is  why  I  have  spoken  to  you  so 
freely  of  France,  and  of  the  intellectual  destinies 
of  your  own  country. 


65 


THE  CONCEPTION  OF  A  NATION* 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 

Meeting  recently  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  Mr.  McKinley,  on  his  return  from  his  ex- 
tensive journey  through  the  Southern  and  Western 
States,  I  asked  him  what  it  was  that  had  struck 
him  most  forcibly  in  the  course  of  his  travels.  His 
reply  was :  "  The  unity  of  our  national  life." 

And  it  is  indeed  an  unusual  and  surprising 
spectacle,  this  youthful  land  whose  inhabitants,  for 
the  most  part  new  arrivals  on  its  soil,  are  already 
so  deeply  imbued  with  that  common  sentiment  which 
we  call  the  love  of  country,  and  derive  therefrom 
that  strong  and  enduring  faith  which  inspires  all 
devotion  and  welcomes  all  sacrifices.  And  as  we 
witness  and  admire  this  grateful  phenomenon,  does 
not  the  question  immediately  present  itself  to  our 
minds :  what  is  this  sentiment  that  we  call  national 
spirit,  what  is  the  essence  of  a  Nation?  This  is 
a   subject   which   some   of   the   greatest   intellects, 

*  An  address  delivered   at  the  Chicago  University,  June 
17th,  1901,  on  the  occasion  of  receiving  from  the  university  the 
honorary  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws. 
56 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

Hegel  in  Germany  and  Renan  in  France,  have 
taken  an  interest  in  discussing.  What  is  the  nature 
of  this  bond  which  holds  fast  together  the  members 
of  a  given  nation?  Whence  springs  this  inner, 
tliis  intimate,  this  deep  and  disinterested  tie  which 
unites  a  citizen  to  his  country,  not  as  a  sharer  in 
an  association  of  common  interests,  but  as  a  child 
to  its  own  family  circle? 

Shall  we  find  the  explanation  of  national  spirit 
in  geographical  unity?  It  had  been  the  assump- 
tion of  Philip  II,  when  he  conquered  Portugal,  that 
the  unity  of  the  Iberian  peninsula  not  only  justified 
but  necessitated  the  national  unity  of  its  various 
populations;  but  facts  were  not  long  in  demon- 
strating the  vanity  and  rashness  of  his  dream. 
Portugal  has  since  regained  its  independence.  The 
link  between  Sicily  and  Venetia,  in  Italy,  would  be 
feeble  indeed  if  it  were  based  solely  on  geographic 
contiguity ;  and  even  here  in  your  own  country,  it 
is  not  easy  at  first  sight  to  discover  the  secret  of 
intimate  union  between  such  opposite  States  as 
Maine,  Texas  and  California.  It  is  clear  of  course 
that  geographic  unity  is  one  of  the  requisite  ele- 
ments to  the  forming  of  a  nation,  but  it  does  not  of 
itself  suffice  to  create  that  nation. 

Nor  is  political  unity  the  essence  of  a  nation. 
The  mere  fact  of  existing  under  one  same  govern- 
ment does  not,  properly  speaking,  carry  with  it  any 
significance ;  in  the  days  when  Italy  was  still  divided 

57 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

into  various  States,  the  Neapolitan  and  the  Milan- 
ese, the  Florentine  and  the  Piedmontese,  all  denom- 
inated themselves  Italians;  while  on  the  contrary 
those  different  nations  which  people  in  the  Ottoman 
empire  are  subject  to  and  obey  one  and  the  same 
master,  although  they  seem  in  no  wise  animated  with 
that  sentiment  of  union  which  constitutes  national 
spirit. 

Again,  is  it  Race  which  constitutes  nationality? 
So  thought  the  men  who  took  part  in  the  European 
movement  of  1848.  They  likewise  assumed  that 
unity  of  language  indicated  unity  of  race,  and  this 
is  why  the  revolutionary  movement  of  that  period 
resulted  in  the  formation  of  the  present  great  uni- 
tarian monarchies  of  Europe.  It  is  a  recognized 
fact  that  the  men  of  1848  were  essentially  lacking 
in  critical  sense,  and  that  they  rather  acted  on  the 
impulse  of  sentimental  notions  than  analyzed  the 
conditions  with  which  they  had  to  contend.  If  only 
they  had  observed  and  studied  France,  the  oldest 
and  best  amalgamated  of  modern  nations,  they 
would  have  realized  that  no  tie  of  origin  holds  to- 
gether a  Proven9al  and  a  Briton,  a  Flemish  and  a 
Basque,  while  the  languages  spoken  by  the  common 
people  in  Aix,  in  Quimper,  in  Hazebrouck,  and  in 
St.  Jean  de  Luz,  are  not  dialects  merely  but  differ- 
ent tongues,  French  being  considered  as  the  official 
language  and  the  idiom  of  polite  and  cultured  so- 
ciety. We  must  conclude  therefore  that  unity  of 
58 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

origin  and  of  language,  while  it  may  contribute  as 
a  factor  to  the  love  of  country,  is  not  its  only  foun- 
dation and  component.  And  how  could  it  be  other- 
wise, when  you  witness  the  birth  and  rapid  growth 
of  this  sentiment  in  the  United  States,  wherein  min- 
gle and  blend  into  a  single  people  Germans,  Irish- 
men, Italians,  a  lesser  number  of  Englishmen  and 
of  Frenchmen,  besides  a  thousand  diverse  nationali- 
ties which  have  been  transplanted  here  from  the 
valley  of  the  Danube  and  from  the  Orient. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  must  note  that  while  na- 
tional sentiment  existed  in  antiquity,  it  did  not 
acquire  generality  until  modern  times;  in  Rome, 
which  carried  everywhere  her  rod  of  empire,  this 
sentiment  was  the  privilege  of  that  small  and  con- 
fined elite  which  governed  the  world.  I  see  but  the 
Greeks  and  the  Israelites,  before  the  Christian  era, 
of  whom  it  might  be  said  that  they  constituted  a 
people.  Both  have  demonstrated  the  fact  that  na- 
tional sentiment  survives  defeat  and  dispersion; 
they  have  carried  with  them,  wherever  driven  by 
the  wind  of  exile,  the  seed  of  their  forefathers' 
spirit,  and  thereby  they  have  endured  even  beyond 
the  princes  and  empires  which  had  thought  to  anni- 
hilate them. 

We  see  from  this  striking  example  national 
spirit  assuming  a  defined  form.  It  was  not  by 
force  of  arms  that  the  Greeks  and  Israelites  exerted 
an  influence  over  the  world;  it  was  by  the  virility 

69 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

and  strength  of  ideas;  which  proves  to  us  that  a 
nation  is,  above  all,  a  moral  being.  No,  a  nation 
is  not  based  upon  geographic  conditions,  nor  upon 
accidents  of  government  or  language;  it  depends 
on  a  community  of  thought,  of  belief,  of  traditions 
and  of  hopes;  it  is  a  series  of  common  glories,  of 
struggles  begun  and  of  sufferings  endured  in  uni- 
son, of  victories  and  of  defeats.  Of  course  interests 
are  joined,  but  this  unity  of  interest  hinges  on  a 
unity  of  sentiment. 

It  has  been  repeatedly  remarked  that  in  private 
life  common  struggles  and  common  misfortunes  are 
necessary  in  order  to  weld  two  hearts  intimately 
together:  the  same  seems  to  be  applicable  to  the 
lives  of  nations.  France  did  not  fully  awaken  to 
her  own  consciousness  until  she  emerged  from  the 
terrible  strain  of  the  Hundred  Years'  War,  while 
your  own  War  of  Secession  proved  but  the  ordeal 
through  which  you  were  to  pass  in  order  to  mould 
securely  together  and  to  finally  constitute  and  es- 
tablish your  nation. 

Then  it  was  that  national  faith  was  seen  to  pro- 
duce heroes,  precisely  as  religious  faith,  in  the  times 
of  persecution,  had  been  seen  to  bring  forth  saints. 
Then  did  France  have  her  Joan  of  Arc,  the  admira- 
ble pasture  girl,  who  led  our  armies  to  victory  and 
who  ended  her  triumphs  in  martyrdom;  while  to 
the  State  of  Illinois  fell  the  signal  honor  of  giving 
to  the  Union  that  great  man,  so  full  of  simplicity, 
60 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

of  patience  and  of  virtue,  the  immortal  Lincoln. 
And  when  days  of  trial  and  sorrow  dawn  for  the 
two  countries,  it  is  the  sacred  memory  of  Joan  of 
Arc  in  the  hearts  of  the  French,  and  that  of  Lin- 
coln in  American  breasts,  which  will  sustain  both 
peoples'  hopes  and  animate  their  courage. 

We  have  proven  therefore  that  a  nation  is  es- 
sentially a  moral  being,  and  we  must  logically  con- 
clude that  it  cannot  exist  without  a  moral  and  in- 
tellectual individuality. 

The  Church  has  long  been  the  depositary  and 
guardian  of  the  traditions  of  civilized  humanity; 
but  religion  is  not  at  stake  here,  and  three  cen- 
turies have  elapsed  since  religious  conscience  has 
become  emancipated.     Who  then  may  safeguard 
and  maintain  those  leading  principles  which  con- 
stitute a  nation's  spirit?     Individuals  are  unable 
to  do  this;  the  authority  and  prestige  of  a  perma- 
nent corps  are  necessary;  and  where  shall  we  look 
for  this  if  not  in  Universities?    It  is  in  this  respect 
that  Universities  have  a  truly  patriotic  role  to  play. 
True,   not   aU   young   men   follow   University 
courses;  but  the  Universities  may  safely  be  said  to 
mould  the  greater  part  and  to  train  the  greater 
number  of  those  young  men  who  are  called  to  take 
the  most  active  participation  in  the  nation's  af- 
fairs: and  it  is  here  that  these  young  men  receive 
from  their  masters  the  imprint  of  those  traditions 
which  constitute  the  moral  unity  of  which  we  spoke 

61 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

a  moment  ago.  They  will  conform  to  these  tradi- 
tions in  the  course  of  their  public  life,  and  will 
transmit  them  to  their  successors  with  that  sustained 
continuity  which  fastens  together  successive  gener- 
ations as  the  links  of  a  solid  and  substantial  chain. 
Thus  may  and  does  each  citizen  realize  that  he  is 
part  of  a  whole,  not  alone  in  the  present,  but  even 
in  days  gone  and  to  come,  and  thus  does  he  feel 
himself  an  integral  part  of  the  past  as  well  as  of  the 
future. 

You  know  the  prevailing  role  played  by  Ger- 
man universities  in  the  upbuilding  of  the  Germanic 
ideal  and  in  the  revival  of  the  Empire;  while  we 
may  say,  speaking  of  the  most  illustrious  and  most 
venerable  of  universities,  that  the  history  of  the 
Sorbonne,  in  Paris,  is  the  history  of  France  itself. 

Following  the  great  upheaval  which  destroyed 
antique  civilization  in  the  last  ruins  of  the  Western 
Empire,  it  is  in  France,  and  particularly  in  the 
South  of  France,  that  the  first  signs  of  a  renascent 
civilization  began  to  manifest  themselves.  The  lat- 
ter's  growth  and  development  was  rapid ;  and  little 
conception  is  generally  had  of  the  high  degree  of 
culture  attained  by  French  civilization  in  the  13th 
century,  in  the  days  of  St.  Louis,  or  of  the  brillian- 
cy which  it  shed  on  all  the  surrounding  world.  It 
was  ruined  by  the  misfortunes  of  the  14th  century 
as  well  as  by  the  Hundred  Years'  War;  and  it 
did  not  recover  its  former  influence  or  expansive 
62 


ESSAYS   AND    ADDRESSES 

strength  until  the  17th  and  18th  centuries.  The 
Sorbonne,  the  most  ancient  of  modern  universities, 
was  the  center  of  intellectual  activity  in  France  in 
the  Middle  Ages.  Situated  as  it  is  on  St.  Gene- 
vieve Hill,  half  way  between  Emperor  Julian's  Pal- 
ace and  the  tomb  of  St.  Genevieve,  the  patroness 
of  Paris  who  was  buried  on  the  summit  of  this  same 
hill,  this  aged  institution  of  the  Sorbonne  seems  to 
belong,  on  the  one  hand,  to  antiquity  and  to  the 
philosophy  thereof,  on  the  other,  to  the  faith  of 
Christianity.  Hither  for  numerous  centuries  stu- 
dents have  flocked  from  all  parts  of  the  world  to 
seek  the  bread  of  the  Mind.  Among  these  figured 
the  immortal  Dante ;  and  it  is  one  of  the  Sorbonne's 
many  titles  to  glory  that  she  has  numbered  this 
genius  among  her  pupils. 

Later  the  great  Conde,  and  Bossuet  too,  received 
here  their  Doctor's  degree :  and  in  our  own  century 
as  in  those  which  have  preceded  it,  the  Sorbonne 
has  been  identified  with  all  our  intellectual  contro- 
versies. 

American  Universities  will  be  for  the  United 
States  what  German  Universities  have  been  for  Ger- 
many, and  what  French  Universities  have  been  for 
France.  It  may  be  that  a  few  centuries  hence  some 
graduate  of  Chicago  University  addressing  some 
young  university  in  China  or  Thibet,  will  utter  with 
reference  to  this  university  similar  words  of  respect 
and  aff^ection  to  those  which  I  have  spoken  to  you 

63 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

here,  on  the  borders  of  Lake  Michigan,  where  I 
am  happy  to  recall  the  glories  of  that  French  Uni- 
versity whose  pupil  I  am  proud  to  have  been.  Na- 
ture has  indicated  that  Chicago  should  be  in  a  way 
the  central  point  of  the  United  States,  the  chain 
which  binds  the  East  and  the  older  States  of  the 
Union  to  the  West,  whose  destiny  it  is  to  open  to 
the  United  States  on  the  Pacific  immense  future 
possibilities.  It  is  here  that  the  region  of  the  Lakes 
is  bound  to  that  of  the  Mississippi,  which  is  itself 
the  very  granary  of  the  New  World.  Indeed  in 
stretching  out  the  hand  on  the  one  side  to  New 
York,  and  on  the  other  to  San  Francisco,  looking 
towards  Canada  on  the  north  and  Louisiana  on  the 
south,  you  become  the  cross-roads  where  the  econom- 
ical forces  of  the  United  States  meet  and  are  con- 
centrated. 

When  history  will  have  followed  her  course,  the 
United  States  will  have  fulfilled  their  glorious  des- 
tinies ;  and  as  it  is  impossible  to  distinguish  in  the 
course  of  a  mighty  river  the  waters  of  the  various 
affluents  which  have  united  to  form  it,  so  will  it 
be  impossible  to  distinguish  in  the  American  people 
traces  of  the  various  races  that  will  have  been  cast 
and  merged  into  it. 


64i 


FRANCE  AS  THE  CHAMPION 
OF  LIBERTY* 

Gentlemen  : 

It  is  indeed  a  pleasure  for  me  to  be  with  you  on 
this  happy  and  auspicious  occasion,  surrounded  by 
these  gallant  officers  of  the  Duguay-Trouin  who 
have  not  wished  to  leave  your  shores  without  visit- 
ing and  without  showing  to  the  youthful  aspirants 
of  our  own  Navy  this  former  parcel  of  France,  now 
so  brightly  prospering  under  the  sunny  glow  of 
the  Amerian  flag.  You  have  become  citizens  of  the 
United  States ;  yet  you  have  not  lost  sight  of  your 
origin.  I  am  proud  to  greet  in  each  one  of  you 
both  an  old  countryman  and  an  American,  that  is  to 
say,  twice  a  friend. 

France  had  done  much  for  the  United  States 
in  the  troubled  and  difficult  hour  of  their  struggle 
for  independence:  she  did  not  do  less  for  their  fu- 
ture greatness  on  that  eventful  day  when  Napoleon, 
whom  none  could  accuse  of  weakness,  consented  to 
a  separation  from  you  and  with  the  foresight  of 

*  Before  the  French  Athenaeum  of  New  Orleans,  at  the  re- 
ception tendered  to  the  officers  of  the  Duguay-Trouin,  on  the 
26th  of  January,  1902. 

65 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

genius  made  to  the  new-born  American  Republic 
what  amounted  to  a  munificent  gift  of  the  whole  of 
Louisiana. 

This  sacrifice  was  only  possible  because  it  made 
you  citizens  of  a  free  country ;  for  France,  as  you 
well  know,  whatever  may  have  been  the  form  of  her 
government  at  home,  and  whatever  phases  of  his- 
tory she  may  have  had  to  traverse,  has  always  been 
the  friend  of  independence  and  the  champion  of 
freedom. 

Permit  me  to  dwell  a  moment  on  this  point.  I 
shall  not  go  back  to  the  Crusades,  which  a  Middle 
Age  historian  characterized  as  the  Gesta  Dei  per 
Francos,  the  acts  of  God  executed  through  the 
French;  although  this  great  movement  of  the 
Christian  world  which  originated  on  the  soil  of  our 
country,  and  among  our  people  stirred  to  enthusi- 
asm by  the  exhortations  of  a  Peter  the  Hermit  or 
of  a  St.  Bernard,  could  only  have  been  inspired  by 
an  ambition  to  relieve  the  world's  religious  con- 
science from  the  weight  which  oppressed  it  at  the 
thought  of  the  tomb  of  Christ  and  of  its  possession 
by  the  Infidels.  The  trend  of  ideas  in  those  days 
was  such  that  the  work  of  deliverance  was  already 
proposed,  and  the  people's  mystic,  warlike  enthusi- 
asm was  a  fitting  response  to  the  ideals  of  the  time. 

Later  on,  during  the  One  Hundred  Years'  War, 
when  France,  half  conquered,  was  obliged  to  re- 
conquer herself,  it  was  a  maid  of  the  people,  Joan 
66 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

of  Arc,  who  appeared  and  who,  by  her  triumphs 
and  by  the  martyrdom  which  crowned  them,  be- 
came the  incomparable  and,  I  was  about  to  say, 
the  incomprehensible  heroine  whose  name  shall  ever 
beam  forth  in  the  annals  of  history  as  the  symbol 
of  holy  struggle  for  national  independence. 

When,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  Holland  and 
Germany  were  combating  for  freedom  of  thought 
and  opposed  Charles  V's  dreams  of  universal  domi- 
nation, it  was  France  who  sustained,  who  encour- 
aged and  who  brought  to  a  glorious  termination 
that  Thirty  Years'  War  which  created  modern  Eu- 
rope. It  is  even  related  that  the  Dutch  States, 
grateful  to  our  King  Henry  IV  for  the  efforts 
which  he  had  made  to  ensure  their  independence, 
invited  him  to  devise  their  colors.  White  was  the 
color  of  the  royal  pennant,  but  the  king's  house 
already  wore  the  blue,  white  and  red.  He  gave 
them  these;  and  this  is  why  the  Dutch  flag  bears 
the  same  colors  as  our  own,  the  same  as  that  of  the 
United  States.  They  are  indeed  the  colors  of  lib- 
erty. 

The  time  came  when  Portugal  sought  to  throw 
off  the  Spanish  yoke,  forced  upon  it  by  Philip  II. 
Richelieu  sent  a  French  army  to  its  support,  which 
ensured  the  success  of  Braganza.  I  may  even  tell 
you  an  anecdote  which  has  been  related  in  connec- 
tion with  this  war.  It  seems  that  among  our  gen- 
erals who  led  this  army  of  Portugal  there  was  a 

67 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

general  by  the  name  of  Chavigny,  who  afterwards 
became  a  Marshal  of  France.  It  happened  one 
day,  as  he  passed  under  the  balcony  of  a  certain 
convent,  that  a  nun  saw  him  who  could  not  refrain 
from  admiring  and  becoming  enamored  of  him.  He 
responded  to  her  love ;  and  when  at  last  the  moment 
had  come  for  him  to  leave  Portugal  she  wrote  him 
letters  which  have  been  preserved  to  this  date ;  they 
are  letters  admirable  of  tenderness,  the  collection 
of  which  endures  even  now  as  one  of  the  master- 
pieces of  amorous  literature. 

Mazarin  followed  Richelieu's  example.  Naples 
one  day  revolted  against  Spain.  A  certain  fisher- 
man by  the  name  of  Mazaniello  placed  himself  at 
the  head  of,  the  Neapolitan  people  and  expelled 
from  the  city  the  Spanish  Viceroy,  the  Duke  d'Ar- 
cos,  an  ancestor  of  my  dear  friend  and  colleague 
who  now  represents  the  kingdom  of  Spain  at  Wash- 
ington. Immediately  from  the  harbor  of  Mar- 
seilles sailed  a  fleet  commanded  by  the  last  of  the 
dukes  of  Guise,  who  was  to  bring  the  Neapolitan 
insurgents  the  helpful  concourse  of  a  French  army. 
When  this  army  arrived  it  was  already  too  late. 
This  Mazaniello  was  but  a  demagogue,  who,  as 
most  demagogues,  had  not  been  great  enough  to 
bear  his  own  success,  and  whom  one  week  of  triumph 
had  frenzied  with  pride  and  with  folly.  This  inci- 
dent has  passed  into  the  domain  of  art.  It  has 
furnished  a  theme  to  one  of  the  most  celebrated 
68 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

operas  of  the  last  century,  the  Mute  of  Portici, 
by  Auber;  and  it  was  after  a  performance  of  the 
Mute  in  Brussels,  in  the  year  1830,  that  the  fol- 
lowers of  Brabante  inaugurated  with  their  songs 
the  Belgian  revolution. 

The  fact  is  that  we  derived  little  benefit  from 
our  intervention  in  Portugal,  and  from  the  Duke 
of  Guise's  expedition:  a  few  love  epistles,  known 
as  The  Portuguese  Letters,  and  an  opera,  this  is 
all  that  remains  to  us  of  these  episodes.  But  we 
do  not  regret  to  meet  in  the  history  of  France  these 
romanesque  souvenirs  and  these  graceful  relics. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  the  son  of  Henry  IV, 
the  duke  de  Beaufort,  the  popular  King  of  the 
Halles,  sallied  forth  to  Cyprus  for  the  defense  of 
Christendom  against  the  Turk,  and  found  here  a 
heroic  and  glorious  death. 

Finally,  Louis  XIV  himself  looked  with  favor 
on  the  enterprise  of  his  nobles  who  offered  their 
swords  to  his  adversary  the  Emperor  of  Germany 
to  aid  him  repel  the  last  attack  of  the  Mussuhnans ; 
and  it  was  La  Feuillade  leading  the  French  chivalry 
in  that  famous  charge  who  ensured  the  triumph  of 
Austria  at  the  battle  of  St.  Gothard. 

I  shall  not  speak  to  you  of  the  efforts,  reckless 
at  times,  made  by  France  in  order  to  safeguard 
the  independence  of  Poland.  I  shall  only  remind 
you  that  France  was  the  first  nation,  at  the  end  of 
the  18th  century,  to  grant  civil  rights  and  privileges 

69 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

to  the  Israelites  and  to  admit  them  in  the  number 
of  her  citizens. 

In  our  century,  while  our  fleets  at  Navarino 
fought  side  by  side  with  the  Russians  and  British 
on  behalf  of  Greece,  it  was  the  Moree  expedition, 
sent  by  the  king  Charles  X,  which  finally  secured 
the  triumph  of  Grecian  independence. 

The  Algiers  expedition  was  undertaken  in  or- 
der to  ensure  the  freedom  of  the  seas  and  to  purge 
the  Mediterranean  of  those  pirates  who  were  the 
shame  and  disgrace  of  the  19th  century.  Thanks 
to  this  enterprise  the  United  States  were  liberated 
from  the  annual  sum  which  they  were  obliged  to 
pay  the  dey  of  Algiers,  and  which  to  the  latter  al- 
ways assumed  the  guise  of  a  tribute. 

In  1830  Belgium,  as  I  stated  a  moment  ago, 
determined  to  regain  her  independence.  She  rose 
up  in  arms.  A  French  army  marched  upon  Ant- 
werp, and  took  this  citadel  after  a  siege  which  the 
Dutch,  under  General  Chasse,  sustained  heroically. 
That  day  a  new  people  was  born  to  freedom. 

Shall  I  speak  to  you  of  Italy?  More  than 
100,000  Frenchmen  died  in  the  plains  of  Lombardy, 
in  1859,  that  she  might  recover  her  independence ; 
and  in  union  with  the  Italians  we  reverently  cele- 
brate the  anniversaries  of  Magenta  and  of  Sol- 
ferino. 

And  when,  in  I860,  came  that  appeal  to  Europe 
from  the  Christians  of  the  Orient  who  were  being 
70 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

massacred  by  the  Kurds,  it  was  a  French  army 
corps  that  received  the  mandate  to  go  forth  and, 
for  the  honor  of  humanity,  to  rescue  peace  and 
order  from  the  Syrian  torch. 

Since  then  indeed  France  has  been  compelled 
to  devote  her  attention  to  her  own  interests;  but 
can  we  fail  to  see  in  this  succession  of  events  which 
I  have  retraced  with  you,  and  which  throughout 
the  course  of  the  centuries  present  themselves  ever 
in  the  same  light  and  with  the  same  characteristics, 
a  sign  and  a  proof  of  that  constant  and  persevering 
liberating  spirit  which  is  the  most  essential  trait 
of  our  nation,  and  which,  all  in  all,  has  more  than 
any  other  fact  in  history  contributed  to  the  casting 
and  moulding  of  modern  Europe?  Napoleon  him- 
self who  upheaved  it,  and  who  seemed  bent  solely 
on  a  work  of  domination,  continued  the  work  of 
the  Revolution,  and  his  soldiers  ploughed  up  Eu- 
rope that  they  might  sow  everywhere  the  seeds  of 
liberty  and  of  equality  which,  as  principles  of  the 
only  true  democracy,  are  now  putting  forth  on  all 
sides  their  victorious  blossoms. 

My  object  in  bringing  before  your  minds  these 
recollections  from  the  past,  these  facts  and  events 
which  are  met  with  through  the  centuries,  though 
they  are  so  far  detached  from  the  politics  of  to-day 
and  more  so  still  from  the  politics  of  to-morrow, 
was  to  trace  for  you  with  one  clear  and  salient 
stroke  the  history  of  the  French  people.    It  is  easy 

71 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

thus  to  understand,  without  the  aid  of  selfish  ex- 
planatory motives,  the  enthusiasm  of  a  Lafayette 
and  the  wisdom  of  a  Vergennes  as  they  brought 
and  proffered  to  Washington  the  much-needed  in- 
tervention of  France.  The  latter  in  this  instance 
again,  only  observed  and  followed  her  own  tradi- 
tions. 

We,  each  one  of  us,  gentlemen,  carry  in  us  some- 
thing of  our  own  country,  and  are  heirs  in  a  small 
measure  of  all  the  centuries  which  have  preceded 
us.  And  when  I  think  of  you,  Frenchmen  by  ori- 
gin and  American  citizens,  you  who  can  extend  the 
hand  of  fellowship  to  the  descendants  of  those  first 
settlers  who  came  over  from  France  to  survey  the 
course  of  the  Mississippi  and  to  mark  it  with  French 
posts  all  the  way  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  Can- 
ada, who  founded  all  these  cities  which  even  now 
bear  the  French  names  by  which  they  first  became 
known,  St.  Louis,  Des  Moines,  Detroit,  Sault  Ste. 
Marie,  I  cannot  but  believe  that  something  of  your 
original  character  has  penetrated  the  American  tem- 
perament, and  particularly  that  of  those  Western 
States  whereof  your  forefathers  were  the  earliest 
pioneers. 

This  to  me  is  the  secret  of  those  outbursts  of 
enthusiasm  which  bring  the  American  so  near  to  the 
French  democracy;  and  I  realize  that  there  exists 
between  them  something  beyond  a  community  of 
political  views,  something  more  than  a  common  de- 

7a 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

sire  for  a  mutual  economic  understanding,  that 
there  exists  something  akin  to  an  affinity  which  per- 
mits us  to  think  and  to  feel  alike.  For  my  part, 
I  find  in  this  fact  a  sanction  to  ideas  which  are 
dearest  to  me:  when  two  nations  thus  cherish  one 
same  ideal,  it  must  be  that  this  idealis  good  and 
just,  since  it  responds  as  well  to  the  traditions  of 
yesterday  as  to  the  hopes  of  to-morrow. 


73 


FRANCE  AND  AMERICAN 
INDEPENDENCE* 

Gentlemen : 

You  have  found  it  natural  that  the  representa- 
tive of  France  should  have  his  place  among  you 
on  this  auspicious  occasion.  For  this  I  wish  to 
thank  you  and  your  esteemed  President,  Governor 
Carroll,  whose  name  has  become  endeared  to  all 
those  who  are  versed  in  the  history  of  your  country. 
The  children  of  France  are  indeed,  like  yourselves, 
sons  of  the  Revolution;  your  final  independence 
was  but  the  fruit  of  the  combined  efforts  of  both 
nations;  and  it  is  just  therefore  that  we  should 
celebrate  together  those  immortal  souvenirs  which 
remain  our  common  heritage. 

In  truth,  nothing  could  be  more  appropriate 
than  this  joint  celebration.  I  have  heard  it  stated 
repeatedly  that  France,  in  giving  support  to  your 
nascent  republic,  was  not  obeying  a  generous  im- 
pulse of  sympathy  for  the  cause  of  liberty  that 
you  were  upholding,  but  saw  and  seized  therein 

*  Address  delivered  at  the  banquet  of  the  Sons  of  the  Revo- 
lution, in  Washington,  D.  C,  on  AprQ  19th,  1902. 

74 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

an  opportunity  of  weakening  a  rival  whom  for 
centuries  she  had  been  combating. 

There  are  in  this  world  men  of  unfortunate  tem- 
peraments who  cannot  believe  that  sincerity  ever 
plays  a  part  in  the  promptings  of  the  human  heall : 
they  delight  in  searching  and  devising  selfish  and 
interested  motives  to  explain  and  to  discount  the 
most  generous  acts.  I,  for  my  part,  know  of  no 
meaner  spirit  than  this,  of  no  tendency  more  mis- 
leading, more  productive  of  injustice  and  of  error. 
Thus  to  view  and  to  judge  the  intervention  of 
France  on  behalf  of  the  United  States  is  to  possess 
a  narrow  and  incorrect  understanding  of  history. 
Nations,  like  private  individuals,  must  be  judged 
by  their  acts,  and  not  by  such  intentions  or  motives 
as  may  afterwards  be  attributed  them.  Who  in- 
deed can  pretend  to  judge  the  intentions  of  men? 
Who  can  pretend  to  probe  human  conscience.'^  War, 
under  whatever  conditions  it  be  waged,  must  ever 
be  a  risk  uncertain  in  results,  and,  all  critics  and 
criticisms  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding,  one  can- 
not eliminate  the  imprudence  or  deny  the  high- 
mindedness  involved  in  the  affronting  for  justice's 
sake  of  the  hazardous  perils  of  war  and  in  actively 
championing  the  cause  of  the  weak.  Indeed  it  is 
nothing  short  of  a  travesty  on  history  to  charac- 
terize as  a  selfish  enterprise  that  earnest,  enthusias- 
tic movement  which  brought  to  America,  on  the 
crest  of  its  tidal  wave,  all  those  young  noblemen, 

75 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

the  flower  of  our  chivalry,  the  Chastellux,  the  la 
Roveries,  the  Lauzuns,  the  La  Fayettes,  and  so 
many  others.  They  were  forsaking  their  own  ca- 
reers; they  were  risking  capture  at  the  hands  of 
your  enemies,  who  would  have  treated  them  not  as 
regular  soldiers  and  prisoners  of  war  but  as  com- 
mon adventurers ;  and  yet  they  were  happy  to  sac- 
rifice all  for  you,  and  brought  to  you  with  them 
an  earnest  expression  of  the  sentiments  of  France 
for  your  nation. 

The  French  Government  itself,  like  all  Govern- 
ments, was  more  deliberate  in  its  resolutions  and  in 
its  manifestations  of  sympathy  on  your  behalf ;  but 
it  opened  its  ports  wide  to  you  even  before  it  had 
publicly  proclaimed  itself  your  ally;  it  furnished 
you  arms,  vessels  and  money,  which  made  it  possible 
for  your  forefathers  to  maintain  the  struggle  even 
in  the  face  of  ill-fortune.  And  when  finally  the 
King,  Louis  XVI,  threw  for  you  into  the  scale  the 
sword  of  France,  our  soldiers  fought  and  bled  with 
yours  on  American  battle-fields.  This  is  of  common 
knowledge;  what  is  not  generally  remembered  is 
that  they  fought  for  you  and  without  you  in  all 
other  parts  of  the  world.  If  the  French  army  suc- 
ceeded in  crossing  the  Atlantic,  if  Yorktown  was 
finally  forced  to  succumb,  if  de  Grasse  at  length 
vanquished  the  British  fleet  in  the  bay  of  Chesa- 
peake, this  was  all  because  the  English  Navy  found 
itself  engaged  in  the  Mediterranean  where  our 
76 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

sailors  were  capturing  Mahon;  because  in  the  In- 
dian seas  Suffren  was  annihilating,  one  after  an- 
other, each  of  the  successive  squadrons  which  Eng- 
land sent  forth  to  oppose  him.  These  potent  diver- 
sions it  was  which  made  possible  and  ensured  the 
final  triumph  of  American  liberty.  When  the  war 
ended,  France  had  lost  25,000  men,  soldiers  and 
sailors,  and  had  spent  one  billion  four  hundred  mil- 
lion pounds,  that  is  to  say,  two  hundred  and  eighty 
million  dollars,  all  of  which  she  gladly  released  you 
from  reimbursing.  In  all  justice  then  might  well 
Washington  write  to  Rochambeau  these  words :  "  To 
the  generous  aid  of  your  nation  and  to  the  bravery 
of  its  sons  is  to  be  ascribed,  in  a  very  great  degree, 
that  independence  for  which  we  have  fought." 

If  I  now  recall  these  memories,  it  is  because,  as 
you  will  readily  believe,  gentlemen,  there  are  none 
in  which  my  country  takes  greater  pride;  your 
glory  is  our  own  glory. 

I  need  not  seek  further  evidence  of  the  deep- 
rooted  sentiment  and  interest  borne  you  by  the 
French  nation  than  the  persistency  with  which,  for 
more  than  a  century,  she  has  participated  in  all 
acts  and  events  which  have  contributed  to  your  ter- 
ritorial development. 

It  was  the  treaty  of  Versailles,  in  1783,  which 
organized  and  created  the  United  States;  and  it 
was  a  French  sloop  which  brought  to  Boston  the 
first  announcement  of  this  convention. 

77 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

A  few  years  elapsed,  and  in  1803  Napoleon 
himself,  in  Paris,  divining  in  a  flash  of  genius  the 
unprecedented  future  which  was  to  be  yours,  hesi- 
tated not  to  far  more  than  satisfy  the  wishes  of 
your  envoys  plenipotentiary,  whose  request  did  not 
extend  beyond  a  cession  of  the  city  of  New  Orleans. 
He  ceded  to  you  the  entire  course  of  the  Mississippi, 
and  thus  opened  access  for  you  to  the  Caribbean 
Sea  and  to  the  Pacific  Ocean. 

Later  on,  the  year  1812  found  you  once  more 
facing  the  foe  whom  we  had  fought  together  in  the 
days  of  Washington.  Once  more  Great  Britain 
was  powerless  to  move  her  whole  forces  against 
you,  for  she  was  caught  fast  in  the  vice-like  grip 
of  a  struggle  which  extended  over  the  entire  sur- 
face of  the  globe,  a  most  tragic  and  terrible  con- 
flict with  the  greatest  and  mightiest  of  military 
captains.  Though  we  were  not  indeed  allied,  we 
were  none  the  less  contending  against  the  same  ad- 
versary, and  thus  indirectly  we  aided  each  other. 

Finally,  when  your  youthful  and  vigorous  na- 
tion, chafing  within  the  already  too  narrow  limits 
of  this  vast  continent  of  North  America,  launched 
out  into  the  open  beyond  and  set  forth  upon  that 
war  which,  now  five  years  since,  left  you  in  posses- 
sion of  Porto  Rico  and  Manila,  was  it  not  France 
again  who  proved  the  intermediary  of  your  devel- 
opment; was  not  hers  the  first  word  of  peace,  and 
was  not  Paris  the  scene  of  that  treaty  which  brought 
78 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

within  the  field  of  your  civilizing  influence  new  and 
immense  domains  beyond  the  seas? 

So  that  in  1783,  in  1803,  in  1898,  France  was 
present  and  participated  as  your  witness  in  the 
greatest  and  most  important  acts  of  your  national 
existence. 

Beyond  a  doubt,  we  are  brought  here  face  to 
face  with  something  more  than  pure  chance,  with 
something  better  than  a  mere  fortuitous  combina- 
tion of  circumstances:  this  continuity  of  good  will 
and  of  services  is  significant  of  the  deep  and  close 
sympathy  which  unites  the  two  peoples.  And  such 
sentiments  are  too  unusual  between  nations,  such 
sentiments  are  too  rare  in  the  history  of  humanity 
for  us  to  fail  to  appreciate  all  their  worth,  or  not 
to  manifest  our  noble  purpose  to  ever  remain  faith- 
ful to  this  traditional  aff*ection.  We  shall  engrave 
on  the  granite  which  is  to  bear  the  statue  of  Ro- 
chambeau  the  words  spoken  to  him  by  Washington 
as  the  latter  bade  him  farewell  and  godspeed :  "  We 
have  been  contemporaries  and  fellow  laborers  in  the 
cause  of  liberty,  and  we  have  lived  together,  as 
brothers  should  do,  in  harmonious  friendship." 

But  more  deeply  and  more  indelibly  still  than 
on  the  granite  itself  are  these  sentiments  engraved 
in  the  heart  of  France;  and  her  children  will  ever 
recall  to  those  of  the  United  States :  "  We  have 
lived  and  we  always  will  live  together  as  brothers 
in  harmonious  friendship." 

79 


UNVEILING  OF  THE  STATUE  OF 
MARSHAL  DE  ROCHAMBEAU* 

The  art  of  France  and  the  generosity  of  the 
Congress  of  the  United  States  are  joining  this  day 
in  the  erection  x)f  a  monument  to  the  memory  of 
Marshal  de  Rochambeau.  This  is  a  fitting  tribute 
paid  to  the  French  military  leader  who  fought 
under  Washington  for  America's  independence. 
But  a  short  time  since  the  American  people  had 
already  consecrated  the  glorious  memory  of  those 
young  and  enthusiastic  French  patriots  who,  fired 
with  an  inspiration  which  but  echoed  the  silent  wish 
of  the  entire  French  nation,  had  from  the  very 
dawn  of  the  struggle  brought  their  swords  with 
Lafayette  to  the  service  of  the  thirteen  colonies.  It 
was  just  that  honor  should  be  rendered  also  to 
those  warriors  who  came  hither  by  order  of  the  Gov- 
ernment of  France,  and  who,  knowing  their  duty, 
fulfilled  without  reserve  and  insured  the  final  suc- 
cess of  the  patriotic  enterprise.  In  the  person  of 
Rochambeau  we  glorify,  jointly  with  their  com- 

*  Address  deUvered  at  Washington,  D.  C,  May  24th,  1902. 
80 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

mander,  the  army  of  France,  its  regiments,  its 
officers  unknown,  its  obscure  soldiery. 

It  is  a  signal  honor  for  me  to  speak  here  as 
Ambassador  of  the  French  Republic  and  to  express 
to  you  all  to-day,  who  represent  here  the  Executive, 
the  Judiciary,  the  Congress  and  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  our  appreciation  of  the  homage 
which  you  are  now  paying  to  the  man  who  carried 
to  their  closing  triumph  the  fleur  de  lys  of  ancient 
France.  To-day  the  French  Republic  sends  you  a 
mission  which  is  headed  by  the  most  eminent  of  our 
general  officers,  General  Brugere.  We  must  behold 
in  him  the  French  army  and  navy  advancing,  with 
a  sort  of  national  piety,  to  celebrate  the  memory 
of  their  elders,  devotees,  like  them,  of  liberty. 

Rochambeau  was  a  strict  disciplinarian,  a  se- 
vere and  courageous  commander,  careful  of  the 
lives  of  his  men ;  he  was  wont  at  times  to  remark  to 
the  young  men  around  him  that  during  the  long 
course  of  his  military  career  fifteen  thousand  men 
had  died  under  him,  but  that  he  could  not  reproach 
himself  with  the  death  of  a  single  one  of  these. 
Thus  he  earned  for  our  army  the  esteem  of  your 
people,  and  for  himself  won  the  affection  and  devo- 
tion of  your  great  Washington. 

Hence  it  is  that  this  monument,  which  at  first 
seems  only  destined  to  evoke  the  recollection  of 
warlike  deeds,  becomes,  by  the  character  of  the 
struggle  which  it  recalls  and  of  the  man  whom  it 

81 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

glorifies,  a  monument  and  a  pledge  of  union  be- 
tween two  nations.  To-day,  just  as  they  did  one 
hundred  and  twenty  years  ago,  the  soldiers  and 
sailors  of  France  and  of  the  United  States  stand 
side  by  side;  they  surround  this  monument,  they 
march  under  one  and  the  same  command;  they 
blend  in  one  common  chord  their  national  hymns, 
and  in  celebrating  their  common  glory  they  give 
the  world  an  example  of  fidelity  in  friendship. 

This  friendship  you  have  proven  to  us.  The 
French  Antilles  have  just  suffered  the  shock  of  a 
tragic  event,  of  a  catastrophe  the  like  of  which  the 
world  had  not  witnessed  for  twenty  centuries.  The 
President  of  the  United  States,  Congress  and  the 
American  people  have  vied  in  generosity  and 
promptness  to  send  relief  to  our  stricken  coun- 
trymen. Permit  me  to  avail  myself  of  this  solemn 
occasion  and  to  thank  publicly,  in  the  name  of  my 
Government  and  country,  you  yourself,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, and  the  entire  population  of  these  United 
States. 

You  have  shown  by  this  act  that  something 
new  had  taken  birth  between  the  nations,  that  they 
may  be  united  by  a  bond  of  disinterested  sympathy 
and  of  mutual  good  will,  and  that  those  ideals  of 
justice  and  of  liberty  for  which  our  fathers  fought 
and  bled  together  one  hundred  and  twenty  years 
since  had  really  borne  fruit  in  the  hearts  of  men. 

A  little  more  humanity  has  won  its  way  into 
8g 


ESSAYS   AND    ADDRESSES 

international  relations,  and  three  years  ago  we 
beheld  representatives  from  all  nations  gathered  to- 
gether to  devise  means  of  ensuring  the  maintenance 
of  peace  between  all  powers.  It  is  a  happy  coin- 
cidence that  even  while  I  am  speaking  here,  the 
generous  young  sovereign  who  had  summoned  the 
peace  conference  at  the  Hague,  and  the  President 
of  the  French  Republic,  are  together  in  St.  Peters- 
burg. Thus  may  we  behold  everywhere,  even  in 
the  remotest  regions  of  the  earth,  a  manifest  ex- 
pression of  the  same  sentiments  of  union  by  and 
between  the  highest  and  supreme  representatives 
of  nations. 

Nor  are  these  mere  barren  manifestations. 
The  world,  gradually  gaining  in  self -consciousness, 
begins  to  frown  more  and  more  severely  at  those 
who  seek  to  disturb  its  peace ;  and  when  we  measure 
the  work  accomplished  and  the  advance  made  since 
Washington  and  Rochambeau  fought  together  for 
the  good  of  humanity,  we  may  well  conclude  that 
they  have  not  combated  in  vain. 

The  present  monument  shall  bear  witness  to 
this  fact,  and  shall  endure  as  a  symbol  thereof 
in  the  eyes  of  generations  to  come. 


THE   PEOPLE   OF   FRANCE* 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 

A  great  many  of  you,  of  course,  have  been  to 
France  ;  but  I  feel  certain  that  the  majority  of 
you  visited  only  Paris,  and  perhaps  Aix-les-Bains 
or  Monte  Carlo.  You  are  not  acquainted  with  the 
genuine  people  of  France.  I  desire  to  say  a  few 
words  to  you  about  the  latter. 

Our  peasants  are  amiable  fellows,  with  whom, 
I,  for  my  part,  like  very  much  to  converse.  They 
possess  a  fund  of  common  sense  and  of  humor,  of 
raillery,  which  makes  of  them  natural  philosophers, 
while  their  wit  has  that  same  soft  earth  flavor  as 
those  old  wine-flasks  which  have  stored  in  their  hold 
all  the  accumulated  warmth  of  a  summer's  mellow- 
ing sun.  I  remember  passing  one  day  through  a 
small  village  of  Bugey,  during  the  vintage  season. 
The  good  village  people  were  all  gathered  in  the 
wine-press,  the  little  children  looked  on  somewhat 

*  Address  delivered  at  the  Memorial  Hall,  Harvard  Univer- 
sity, Cambridge,  Mass.,  introducing  Mr.  A.  Croizet,  Dean  of 
the  Faculty  of  Letters  of  the  Sorbonne,  on  the  31st  day  of 
May,  1902. 

84 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

awed,  while  the  old  folks,  as  in  times  gone  by,  stood 
encouraging  the  young  who  turned  the  screw  in 
order  to  crush  the  grapes.  I  walked  up  to  them; 
the  moment  was  solemn;  the  first  wine  of  the  year 
was  about  to  flow  from  the  vat.  An  old  man  re- 
ceived this  in  a  glass.  He  had  caught  sight  of 
me.  He  came  to  me,  and  doffing  his  cap,  said: 
"  Sir,  you  are  a  stranger  among  us ;  do  us  the 
honor  of  sampling  the  first  glass  of  our  new  vint- 
age. This  will  bring  good  luck  to  the  whole  vat 
full." 

I  took  the  glass  from  his  hand,  and  withdrew 
after  having  drained  it.  I  have  often  since 
thought  of  this  old  man,  and  the  memory  of  his 
greeting  has  recurred  to  me  clothed  in  a  garb 
antique  as  hospitality,  and  marked  with  that 
grace  which  ancient  races  alone  can  claim  to  pos- 
sess who  know  the  price  of  repose  and  the  value  of 
leisure. 

I  have  found  that  from  this  old  peasant,  who 
for  so  many  years  has  watched  the  Rhone  and  its 
eddies  whirl  past  the  foot  of  the  hillock  whereon  his 
vine  is  planted,  my  fancies,  in  spite  of  myself,  have 
wandered  back  to  the  land  of  Greece.  This  day 
again  the  memory  of  this  land  has  loomed  up  be- 
fore me.  You  will  understand  this  quite  readily, 
when  I  remind  you  that  Mr.  Croizet,  the  Dean  of 
our  old  Sorbonne,  is  one  of  our  pre-eminent  Hellen- 
ists. You  are  about  to  hear  him;  and  it  may  be 
85 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

that  you  will  discover,  blended  together  in  his 
words,  the  spirit  of  olden  France  and  that  of  Greece 
herself;  thus  formerly  in  Athens  did  they  perfume 
and  flavor  with  the  honey  of  Attica  the  borders 
of  a  cup  filled  with  generous  wine. 

Mr.  Croizet  will  tell  you  of  French  learning 
and  erudition,  which  have  furnished  science  with 
such  men  as  Champollion  and  Burnouf.  I  am  in- 
clined to  deplore  the  tendency  of  those  gentlemen 
who  come  from  France  on  lecturing  tours  in  the 
United  States;  they  speak  to  you  of  nothing  out- 
side of  our  literature ;  it  would  seem  that  the  French 
were  exclusively  a  nation  of  artists.  I  hold  art  in 
the  highest  esteem;  but  I  should  welcome  one  who 
acquainted  you  with  other  features  of  our  national 
existence,  who  unrolled  before  you  the  history  of 
mathematical  sciences  in  France,  who  told  you  of 
Descartes  and  of  Pascal,  of  Maupertuis  and  of 
d'Alembert,  of  Laplace  and  Poincare.  I  should 
like  to  have  you  told  the  history  of  the  natural 
sciences  among  us,  to  hear  at  least  mentioned  to 
you  the  name  of  Lavoisier,  the  father  of  modern 
chemistry,  of  Cuvier,  of  Claude  Bernard,  and  even 
of  Pasteur. 

I  was  visiting  one  day  the  Congressional  Li- 
brary in  Washington,  and  I  noted  that  of  all  the 
bronze  statues  which  adorn  the  large  reading  hall 
of  this  edifice  not  one  was  the  effigy  of  a  son  of 
France. — I  could  not  suppress  a  feeling  of  regret 
86 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

and  indeed  of  astonishment  at  this  omission;  and 
this  is  why  I  now  seize  this  opportunity  of  ci- 
ting to  you  a  few  of  those  great  names  which 
figure  among  the  greatest  in  the  history  of  hu- 
manity. 


87 


FAREWELL    BANQUET* 

Gentlemen : 

I  could  not  express  in  words  my  deep  and  heart- 
felt appreciation  of  your  generous  and  cordial  re- 
ception. I  cannot  thank  sufficiently  Senator  De- 
pew,  my  good  friend  Mr.  Hyde,  and  you  your- 
selves, gentlemen,  the  representative  men  of  the 
United  States,  for  this  more  than  kind  manifesta- 
tion on  your  part.  Yet  must  I  note  that  my  pleas- 
ure in  being  with  you  to-night  is  not  unmixed  with 
melancholy  over  the  thought  of  leaving  the  United 
States  and  my  American  friends. 

Senator  Depew  remarked,  a  few  moments  ago, 
that  I  had  succeeded  in  penetrating  different  Amer- 
ican circles,  and  perhaps  in  modifying  somewhat 
the  opinion  of  my  country  which  existed  in  the 
American  mind.  It  is  a  fact  that  nothing  could 
be  more  gratifying  to  me  than  these  assurances  of 
good  will  and  of  friendship  which  I  am  leaving  in 
the  United  States. 

.  *  Address  at  the  farewell  banquet  tendered  Mr.  Cambon  in 
New  York,  on  November  10th,  1902.  In  response  to  the  toast 
proposed  in  his  honor. 

88 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

However,  gentlemen,  I  fully  realize  the  fact 
that,  whatever  portion  of  these  kind  remarks  be 
addressed  to  me  personally,  and  whatever  portion 
of  them  be  reserved  for  the  official  person  of  the 
Ambassador,  the  latter's  acts  and  doings  bear 
genuine  value,  they  are  of  real  importance  only 
in  so  far  as  they  remain  a  true  and  faithful 
expression  of  the  sentiments  of  his  own  country. 
And  permit  me  to  add  that  of  the  flattering  ap- 
plause which  greeted  the  too  flattering  remarks  of 
Senator  Depew,  I  only  wish  to  consider  and  to  bear 
in  mind  that  part  which  is  intended  for  France, 
because  I  have  never  done  anything  but  in  truthful 
representation  of  her  sentiments,  of  her  sympathy 
and  of  her  friendship  for  the  United  States. 

For  the  constant  association  of  France  with 
you,  through  all  important  phases  of  your  history, 
has  not  been  the  fortuitous  result  of  a  happy  but 
blind  coincidence. 

If  on  all  these  occasions  the  two  peoples  have 
always  stood  side  by  side,  without  ever  a  serious 
misunderstanding,  without  ever  a  divergence  or 
conflict  of  political  tenets,  the  bond  has  been  some- 
thing more  than  mere  political  interests.  It  has 
been  a  common  and  constant  blending  of  our  two 
histories. 

I  have  felt  the  conviction  that  such  was  the 
case,  and  that  the  diplomacy  of  to-day  should  not 
resemble  that  of  the  sixteenth,  seventeenth  and 
89 


ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 

eighteenth  centuries,  for  the  nations  of  the  present 
are  linked  together  by  something  more  than  purely 
political  ties,  by  something  stronger  and  more 
durable  than  commercial  interests;  while  in  par- 
ticular two  Republics  which  pursue  the  same  end 
of  government  by  the  people  and  for  the  people, 
though  their  institutions  may  differ,  must  be  bound 
by  ties  different  from  those  which  unite  other  coun- 
tries one  to  another ;  and  this  is  why  I  have  thought 
it  my  duty  to  remind  the  American  people  of  the 
similarity  which  exists  exclusively  between  French 
and  American  democracy. 

Hence  it  is  that  you  have  seen  me  traversing 
the  continent,  instead  of  remaining  solely  in  Wash- 
ington, and  hence  it  is  that  you  have  seen  me  visit- 
ing your  Universities,  where  is  being  cultivated  and 
developed  this  great  American  democracy. 

If  I  have  had  the  good  fortune  to  succeed  in 
this  task,  you  must  render  all  honor  to  my  country, 
to  the  sentiments  of  my  countrymen,  to  the  kind 
sympathy  which  you  have  ever  manifested  for  me, 
all  of  which  considerations  are  very  much  above 
and  of  very  much  greater  significance  than  the 
personality  of  the  man  who  is  about  to  return  to 
France  and  than  the  most  precious  and  grateful 
memories  which  he  is  about  to  carry  with  him. 


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